Plans for Eight-Story Apartment Building Behind Santa Barbara Mission Still Incomplete

Proposed Building Too Close to Mission Creek?

An aerial view of 505 E Los Olivos. | Credit: Jim Bartsch

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Plans for the eight-story building at 505 East Los Olivos — located behind the historic Old Mission Santa Barbara — are still incomplete. On December 13, the City of Santa Barbara sent a letter to the project’s development team outlining the project’s missing parts and errors within it. This is the second response letter Santa Barbara has sent to the team. From now on, application reviews will cost $2,346.50 each — one fourth of the project’s application fee.

The property at 505 East Los Olivos is nestled between the historic mission and the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. The project’s applicants, listed as Ben Eilenberg, a lawyer currently ineligible to practice law in California, and The Mission LLC, a company without clear ownership, are proposing to build an approximately 90-foot-tall building with 255 rental units, including 51 low-income units. The project would also include 445 parking spots and 336 bicycle parking spots underground.

The project’s plans require details on the proposed driveway and roof, as well as corrections to the submitted floor plans and elevation drawings, among other things.

The city also needs clarification on how close the building will be to the nearby Mission Creek. The city states that all developments should be at least 25 feet away from the top of the creek’s bank. On diagrams, it appears the proposed building is within that 25-foot limit, meaning the project would need approval from the city’s community development director.

The project falls under Builder’s Remedy, which is part of the state’s housing laws that allows developers to bypass regional zoning codes to build projects that include affordable housing units when a city does not have a state-certified housing element. This project’s preliminary plans were submitted in January 2024, when Santa Barbara was out of compliance. The city is currently in compliance.

According to state code, the developers cannot revise their project’s residential units or constructed square footage by 20 percent or more without having to submit a new preliminary application. A new preliminary application permit would not fall under Builder’s Remedy laws. That means the developers cannot significantly grow or shrink this project’s size without losing the benefits of Builder’s Remedy.

Renderings of the building included in the plan show a rectangular structure with a parking garage at its base, cutting into the slope of the property. Without permission from the architect or designer, the Independent is unable to provide any design renderings.

The project’s architect has not signed or included identification information on submitted plans, but under the “professionals” tab in Accela, the city’s software program, the local firm Bildstein Architecture and Planning is listed with the license type “architect.” Bildsten Architecture and Planning did not respond to a request for comment in time for this story.

In addition to the requirements for a completed plan, the response letter includes a section of advisory information that the developers may need to provide later on in the permitting process, such as the property owner’s name, approval to demolish a historic resource (buildings on the property have been listed on the city’s historic resource inventory since 1986), and a traffic assessment, as well as technical studies on things like aesthetics, archaeology, biological resources, geology, and more.

The response letter also notes the project’s inconsistency with objective planning standards, including possible conflicts with the city’s charter. The charter states that building heights in single-family-residence zones like the project’s zone, are limited to 30 feet in height. According to Santa Barbara City lawyers, whether a charter’s rules or state law takes precedence in this circumstance is undecided, as courts have not set a precedent on voter-approved charter provisions and builder’s remedy. In January, the city stated that state law trumped the city’s height limit in regard to the La Cumbre Plaza project.

Questions about the project’s feasibility will have to wait until the project’s application is complete. The Mission LLC and Eilenberg (who did not respond to a request for comment in time for this story) have three months to submit a revised application — a timeline that started December 13. Once the application is complete, the project will need to undergo California Environmental Quality Act review.