I live in Noleta. If you’re not familiar with that name, you’re probably not alone. Noleta is the unofficial name for the unincorporated area between the cities of Santa Barbara and Goleta.
My home sits about 400 feet from the housing construction underway on San Marcos Road, giving me a front-row seat to what happens when efforts to address the housing crisis arrive in your neighborhood with bulldozers.
Construction has been a nuisance. There have been violations by the builder, county fines, and the noise, dust and disruption that inevitably accompany a project of this size. I get it. Construction is messy.
But the construction isn’t what concerns me most. It’s what happens after the crews leave.
Nearly 1,700 housing units are planned among the San Marcos Ranch, Tatum and 5050 Hollister projects in this relatively small portion of the Eastern Goleta Valley.
There is an important reason more housing is being directed toward the South Coast, and it deserves to be acknowledged.
The Santa Barbara County Association of Governments’ current housing allocation places a greater share of the region’s housing need on the South Coast. SBCAG points to the imbalance between where people live and where they work: roughly 60 percent of the region’s jobs are located on the South Coast. Building more housing closer to those jobs is intended, in part, to reduce long-distance commuting.
That makes sense.
But it also raises another question: If this much development is going to be concentrated in communities such as Noleta, where is the corresponding plan for the roads, intersections, schools, utilities and other infrastructure that will serve the additional population?
Housing comes with a regional allocation. Infrastructure needs a plan, too.
I recognize that our region has a serious housing problem, particularly the shortage of housing affordable to working families. I support additional housing when it is sensibly located, appropriately scaled and thoughtfully planned.
These projects will also produce meaningful affordable housing. Based on current plans, roughly one-quarter of the units among the three projects are expected to have some form of affordability or income restriction. That is significant and should be recognized.
But most of the housing will still be market-rate, and whether a home is affordable or market-rate, its residents will use the same roads, intersections, schools, utilities and public services.
That is why the cumulative impact matters.
A single housing project can be evaluated on its own and found workable. So can a second and a third. But residents experience all of them together.
Traffic does not know which development it came from.
I have also been disappointed by aspects of the public process surrounding San Marcos Ranch, Tatum and 5050 Hollister. State housing laws and the county’s Housing Element constrain some of the choices available to local officials once sites have been designated and rezoned for housing.
That makes meaningful public participation earlier in the process even more important.
Residents should understand when they can genuinely influence the scale and location of development and when previous state or county decisions have already substantially limited the options. Public hearings should not leave residents feeling that the outcome was decided before they entered the room.
There is another issue that deserves attention: Who speaks specifically for Noleta?
Unlike residents of Santa Barbara or Goleta, Noleta residents do not have a city government focused exclusively on their community. We are part of unincorporated Santa Barbara County, and the elected officials making major land-use decisions represent much larger constituencies with many competing priorities.
That structure can create a degree of political insulation between decision-makers and the residents most directly affected by development. When a city approves major growth, its city council members answer directly to voters throughout that city. Noleta has no comparable local governing body whose primary responsibility is to this community.
That does not mean county officials are acting in bad faith. But it does make accountability, transparency and meaningful public participation especially important when one unincorporated community is being asked to absorb substantial growth.
When residents believe major land-use decisions have effectively been made before the public process begins, confidence in local government suffers.
Noleta should contribute to solving our region’s housing problems. Every community should.
The SBCAG data provide a reasonable explanation for why the South Coast is being asked to accommodate more housing. But they do not answer the more local question: Within the South Coast, how should thousands of new units be distributed, and how do we make sure the infrastructure serving the communities receiving them keeps pace?
Residents deserve clear answers.
Can the roads and intersections handle additional traffic? What improvements are planned, and when will they occur? Can existing infrastructure and public services support the additional population? What is the cumulative impact of several major developments within such a small area? And how will the people who already live here have a meaningful voice as their community changes?
Those aren’t anti-housing questions. They’re planning questions.
Growth is inevitable, and additional housing is necessary. The regional case for building more housing on the South Coast is understandable.
But as Noleta absorbs this level of growth, the question residents deserve to have answered is this:
Is Noleta getting the infrastructure planning and political accountability that should accompany this level of growth?
So far, we have not seen any evidence that it is.
