On Exile, Anger, and Home

The surrealist Chilean filmmaker Alexander Jodorowsky once commented:

“There are, in the genealogical tree, traumatized, unprocessed places that are eternally seeking relief. From these places, arrows are launched toward future generations. Anything that has not been resolved must be repeated and will affect someone else, a target located one or more generations in the future.”

I have such a tree in my life. It is not my tree, but it has been both physically present on the road to my house, and symbolic, and it has carried my ancestral memories forward for 50 years.

My house is the first and only house I have owned in Santa Barbara, purchased over 50 years ago. The downpayment came from my mother, a Holocaust survivor, from her lump sum payment of reparations, which she finally received in 1973. At that time my father, also an Auschwitz survivor, told me — “No matter what happens, you hold on to that house.” Both my parents had their houses taken by the “government,” first by the Nazis, then by the Communist regime. I have listened.

Understandably, I hope, I have a mania about arbitrary government behavior, and fair process — second-generation Holocaust survivor, refugee, immigrant. I’m going to turn eighty this year, one year past quadruple bypass. I would like to die at home, like my mother did. Which is why I am stunned that the County of Santa Barbara has chosen to thwart my ability to build a caregiver unit on my property, the very same unit the the county approved, over three years ago, as consistent with all applicable standards.

The county knows that financing the new construction against my existing home would cause cancellation of the very good fire insurance policy I have been paying for 50 years, as well as destroy my entire financial security. Holding on to this house is important both because of how my mother paid for it, and because it represents the entirety of the generational “wealth” that will, I hope, allow my own grandchildren to live in Santa Barbara, where they were born and raised, with their own families. Our housing laws favor such arrangements.

The good news was that county staff agreed that I could apply for  a ministerial lot split, to build my already approved and permitted house on its own lot, and my bank agreed, in concept, that they could finance construction of my new unit based on the value of the new lot, depending on conditions when the lot was created. The only “change” in my approved project would be the invisible lot line down the middle of the lot. Same fire protection, same access, same approved sprinklers.

It was not to be. After demanding a $10,251 “deposit” for my application, which I paid, and which the county has kept, staff has refused, for over three years, to complete my “ministerial” lot split, leaving me in limbo.

Now, the county has claimed, through its lawyers, that I had never been “eligible” to apply in the first place because the same Fire Marshal who approved the house won’t approve the lot split unless I perform work on the property of others — work that the county knows I cannot physically achieve.

The Planning Director refused to take action on my application. The Clerk of the Board of Supervisors was instructed that I have no right to appeal either the Fire Marshal or the Planning Director’s demands. These people are supposed to be working together.

People who know my personal history also know that my mother, Klara, talked back to people with swastikas on their uniforms. In effect, she acted as her own lawyer, and saved her own life, more than once. And after she survived, she reclaimed her home and possessions. She was rather sharp-tongued about it. Some would call her an angry woman. But she would posthumously disown me if I accepted this utterly irrational, bureaucratic aggression, now, toward the house she paid for, and died in.

So, to the emblematic Oak. The Fire Marshal claimed that its overhanging limb impermissibly narrowed the lane. They are wrong. The tree belongs to my neighbor. It is not my legal responsibility. It has never prevented access to my property. Fire engines, SCE trucks, MarBorg trucks, and other large trucks could always get by the tree to reach my house without difficulty. The county knows this. I have sent them photos.

Instead of asking the owner of the tree to remove the offending limb, or, God forbid, send out someone from their own Public Works department, if they truly believed it posed a hazard — they decided to force me to “fix it,” prior to processing my application. I would have done it, if I could, to avoid the horror show of litigation.

I should add, here, that the Board of Supervisors  gave me another “Voluntary” Option — even more odious — which was to agree never to park anywhere on my own property, and to dedicate all my five existing, approved parking spaces to an imaginary fire equipment “turnaround” which they know is impossible, legally, for me to build to their specifications. This would eliminate the one parking space required for my approved caregiver unit, so I would not be able to build anything at all. There is no street parking. The Supreme Court, like them or not, has explicitly denounced these kinds of “Options” as extortion, and worse. I have no idea what the lawyers told the supervisors. No one would talk to me. Did I mention I’m turning eighty?

A few months ago, the county was informed that The Oak was “trimmed” by an Act of God. If it ever even theoretically posed an obstacle to fire equipment access, it no longer does.

The Fire Marshal has this photo. But now, the county still won’t approve my lot split, or process my application, or allow me any appeal, unless I first widen and repave the entire lane, none of which is my property. And yes, my house is on the so-called Very High Fire Map. The State of California listed it as moderate risk, but last year, in the middle of this, the county changed that to High Risk, without any notice to me (or any other affected homeowner, I’ll wager). Half the county is on this map. But my house has two evacuation routes and is located on flat ground, less than five minutes from the Mission Canyon Fire Station. And there is no question that a fire truck can access my property, either from the front or the rear. This is the diametric opposite of Painted Cave. And yet … 

Now, after three years, the court has tentatively ruled in the county’s favor on a legal issue underlying the case, despite that I have submitted evidence that the Department of Housing and Community Development, the state agency responsible for interpreting and applying the housing laws, has explicitly disagreed with the county on the very same issues. And I hear the county is upset because I described their behavior as Kafkaesque.