••• “Developers for The Farm, a for-sale townhome and single-family housing project proposed for the Carpinteria Bluffs, have released plans for the 27-acre parcel and scheduled an April 9 open house where community members can ask questions. […] Early plans show 191 for-sale, two-story residences: 94 townhomes and 97 single-family homes, between 26 and 30 feet tall. Parking will include on-street guest parking and a two-car garage for each unit, with a total of 683 parking spaces.” The location deserves better. —Noozhawk
••• “The county supervisors drew the line on a March 18 deadline by which 22 commercial cannabis cultivators had to get carbon-based odor scrubbers installed, rejecting a time extension requested by eight of them. […] Those who fail to comply risk having their business licenses suspended or revoked.” —Independent
••• “Nearly eight years after the Santa Barbara Unified School District bought a former National Guard Armory [700 E. Canon Perdido Street], leaders are moving forward with plans to potentially turn the site into a career and technical education center. […] Construction on the site most likely wouldn’t start until summer 2028, and the site wouldn’t be ready for use until 2030.” —Noozhawk
••• “The Santa Barbara City Council will continue to consider adding a property transfer tax increase to the November ballot but won’t be moving forward with an increase in the city’s transient occupancy tax—for now.” —Noozhawk
••• “Biologists found just one monarch butterfly at Ellwood Mesa on Monday during the last butterfly count of the 2025-26 overwintering season. That follows the trend of declining numbers that biologists have observed for decades. Since the 1980s, there has been a 95% decline in the western monarch population.” —Noozhawk
••• “A divided Santa Barbara Planning Commission voted to advance a controversial short-term vacation rental ordinance to the City Council without resolving several key provisions. Even commissioners supporting moving the proposed law forward in the 4-2 vote expressed regret that it departs unfinished after hearing a raft of concerns from short-term rental supporters. But city staff laid out a schedule that means the measure—about a decade in the making—will have to land before the City Council for approval by May.” —Santa Barbara News-Press
••• “The Department of Justice issued a sweeping 22-page legal opinion this Thursday asserting that the Defense Production Act empowers President Donald Trump or his Secretary of Energy to approve Sable Offshore’s plans to restart offshore oil production in Santa Barbara County at what’s known as the Santa Ynez Unit, preempting regulatory requirements imposed by numerous state agencies and a federal decree issued in 2020 giving the Office of the State Fire Marshal the last word when it comes to restarting Sable’s corrosion-prone pipeline.” The federal government sure is pro-Sable. —Independent
••• From a press release on Edhat: “One805Live! Expands to Two-Day Benefit Concert as Early Talent Sets the Stage for a Spectacular 2026 Lineup [….] Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo and George Thorogood lead early talent announcements.”
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The bluffs project makes me depressed.
Genuinely curious what outcome you’d prefer. The land is privately owned and zoned for development. If not this, then what? Leaving it vacant forever isn’t really on the table.
I’d definitely prefer a hotel with restaurant, farm, grounds, etc. than Orange County tract homes.
Respectfully, there was never a version of development on this site that Carpinteria was going to welcome with open arms. That’s the problem. Even if we could rewind the clock, the hotel would get shot down again by the same people now fighting this. Something is going to get built, so what’s the strategy, keep saying no until we lose the ability to say anything at all?
It’s not vacant parcel: it’s a beautiful co-op organic farm, Farm Cart Organics, that feeds our community, and a farm school, Carpinteria Children’s Farm, and Tee Time, a popular local business.
The land is privately owned and zoned for development. What operates on it today exists at the discretion of the owners, and that can change at any time. We aren’t owed anything on that parcel. Those are wonderful businesses and I hope the development finds a way to incorporate them, but pretending the current arrangement is permanent doesn’t help anyone, least of all those businesses. If it’s really about saving them, then I hope you’ll be there April 9th pushing for a way to include them in the plan. I heard the developers were telling people they were open to including the farm in the new plan, potentially.
Exactly this. I haven’t heard any realistic alternatives yet.
Hotel concept was better than this
Fully agree! I thought the hotel/farm/housing concept was a much better fit for that land. But when people oppose everything, something eventually gets crammed through.
For anyone curious, the “farm resort” initially proposed—and intensely resisted by Carpinteria residents—is described in this post: https://www.sitelinesb.com/99-room-farm-resort-proposed-for-the-carpinteria-bluffs/
My comment on your post here last June:
https://www.sitelinesb.com/nearly-200-housing-units-proposed-for-the-carpinteria-bluffs/
“the developer is saying it’ll use the density bonus to accommodate the housing instead—and retain the Builder’s Remedy rights if they turn out to be necessary. ”
Translation – if you folks don’t like a 200 unit development, wait till you see the 400 unit one we have waiting in the wings.
and:
If people want to reflexively oppose everything, then they may end up looking at something that looks like the 505 E. Los Olivos Street proposal, and saying “hey you know, that hotel they proposed was pretty nice.”
The state is going to force housing on communities that don’t plan for it. Carpinteria can either shape what gets built here or wait for Sacramento to do it for us. I’d rather have a say.
Those tract homes are tacky and not good enough for precious Carpinteria. Carp deserves much better than those eye sores.