Seriously! I had to FIGHT for a refund after the wonderful SBCounty Tax Assessor rec’d my check that was dated and postmarked well before due date- they actually had the audacity to fight returning my $376 FINE! They haggled with me over not sending envelope, only check with letter to tell me “I had already made payment (with late fee✔️) and to make a note in my ledger- when I asked for the envelope/to PROVE it was dated before due date- they sent a PHOTOCOPY of the front of envelope! Want to know why? On ALL my gov’t dealings I write TRUMP 2024 on the front or back of envelope- someone in their office purposely withheld my property tax and thought I’d just pay the fine. It was a very pleasurable experience to force 2 different people in the Assessors office to apologize for not immediately refunding me, and in turn, to not refund me AT ALL! I had to force them giving me a refund! VIVACALIFAS!
Unless you are living off grid 100%, not paying for any maintenance, not paying property tax or insurance, your costs of homeownership HAVE increased in the past four years.
Thanks for reply
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This is racist and weird to say, not to mention demonstrably untrue.
Good luck finding people to work at boutiques and restaurants that charge $100/meal with your racist, classist plan!
Some of y'all maybe shoud read this: https://peoplesaction.org/wp-content/uploads/Economist-Sign-on-Letter_-FHFA-RFI-Response-1.pdf
Somehow 1000's of low income, low-skilled, undocumented (not allowed to legally work in the US) people live and thrive in our community. And yet, according to the activists, we are in dire need of low income housing to house all the people making 60-80k a year.
What would happen if all those people who were not supposed to be working here left? Would 1000's of units become available at "market rate"? Would the market respond with added inventory with lower prices? Would certain businesses suffer due to a lack of cheap, exploitable labor? Would others thrive due to a fair market? Would incomes and wages rise due to the market requiring a higher figure to attract workers? Why yes. Yes they would.
Until reality is discussed, this whole conversation is an exercise in academic discourse. Not in real life and certainly not in practice.
We need to raise the standard of living downtown. Attract higher incomes and high wage professional jobs. Not add more low income housing and tourist focused low wage jobs. Oh, and ENFORCE THE LAWS already. Cheaters are cheaters. Make them pay.
This might be a shock to some of you but people who live in low income housing do not shop at boutiques or eat $100 meals. They barely contribute to the city's tax base and now the city wants to hit those people with a regressive sales tax increase. The very people who can afford it the least! (Sales taxes hit the lowest income people the hardest).
When you pack the downtown corridor with low income, or worse, Govt housing, you get low income results while removing future value from the tax rolls. Add the tourism industry and you end up with the inevitable... the lowest common denominator.
I have a friend coming to Santa Barbara on 26 September. I wanted to purchase two tickets to tour Bellosguardo. Please let me know if this is possible.
All the best,
Michelle
This is not what every property owner I know or have heard of is experiencing! The fact that insurance is going up , if you can even get it, makes headlines! Maintenance costs are astronomical with the going rate for handymen more than doubling, materials have gone up so much that's another headline maker, utilities up, and plumbing and other work has gone up steeply. I've had plumbers tell me I should have done a number of things awhile back because prices have gone up so much. Seriously, are you being serious?
While I strongly disagree with you that rent prices are skyrocketing because of "greed," (I'm not even sure what this means: do we live in a fantasy land where developers and property owners are putting their capital at risk in order to operate a non-profit? Do we not believe in the concept of free markets governing the prices units can command?) I don't think anyone disagrees that prices are high relative to average incomes and business revenues and have quickly gotten higher. Living in CA is getting harder and driving people into homelessness, vibrant areas into ghost towns full of vacant units, etc etc.
As so many commenters have piled on here, there is pretty much a consensus among economists at this point that rent control hurts everyone, including tenants (particularly tenants). But a huge issue in CA/SB (and lots of places) is that it's so difficult to develop, build, and for suppliers to live and work here. Supply is highly constrained because of restrictions, not all of them really productive. If we want to talk about bringing prices down and actually achieve something other than just a nice vent session, let's get out the reading glasses and scrutinize where we can reduce red tape, make some reasonable tradeoffs, and get rid of antiquated or no-longer-relevant building or business restrictions. It is possible to make things easier for business without hurting the environment, the architectural standards, or anything else. But it will take work.
Lucas is right. Without even getting into the complicated economics, even the most basic premise of Paul's argument is incorrect. Any homeowner can tell you their costs tend to go up every year.
Paul - your costs owning a home have not increased in 4 years? I don't believe that. What about property taxes (up EVERY year). Utilities, parts and labor for maintenance and repair? All are up! What if you have to finance an expense? Interest rates have increased.
The Tri-County Produce project (53 units, average size 830 sqft) could be improved. Option 1: eliminate all residential parking and reduce the height to 3 stories. Option 2: 4 stories, but AB 1287 project with 100 units (average size 446 sqft).
Homeowner insurance polices! Some have gone up more than 30% in one year! With some companies leaving our state altogether.
It's regarding the agricultural enterprise ordinance, which is a hard thing to explain in a few words.
Your IG Story says “changes coming to the SYV” and yet there is no mention about changes coming to the SYV once you go to page?
The regular argument against rent control isn't that nothing should be done. Alternatively, the best way to help reduce the burden of rent for low-income families is for the government to provide rent vouchers like Section 8 housing. Then the developer needs not create special units that are rent-controlled and the process is entirely between the government and the person receiving assistance. Giving people money has been shown time and again to be the best use of government funds.
Renters are made aware of any changes to property ownership and any increase of costs should be outlined to them explaining why an increase is necessary. But if a property maintains the same ownership, show me where increases in costs come in to play that requires a 6% increase in annual rent to the same renters. Those renters then have less income to spend in the community affecting local businesses etc.
What happens when a property changes hands, and the new owner's costs have increased significantly? Any boom in the prices of real estate, as we've seen here over the past few years, will end up trickling down to rent prices. The only way to control rent prices in a sustainable way is to allow for more housing development. Rent control has been proven time and time again to negatively impact housing stock, and doesn't actually result in long term benefits to renters.
As a former renter and now homeowner in SB, I strongly believe SOMETHING needs to be put in place to restrict the increase in rent. We have owned our home for 4 years and our monthly costs have not changed so why would that be any different for someone renting their property? There's no reason rents need to increase to the same tenants every year. Freakonomics states that rent control deincentivizies new construction. Show me where new affordable (emphasis on affordable) construction has happened in SB without rent control. With our geography new builds are not going to be happening at the rate needed so it's time that landlords stop the greed.
I'd love to see SY Kitchen in any space in SB!
Sort out the writing style and grammar and this would be a great read. Sadly, as it is, it is very hard to follow coherently because of the strange word choices, mistakes and unusual grammatical constructions. Top tip: if you don't know it, don't use it! Loved some of the pictures though.
I’m still heartbroken over losing Oliver’s. Had high hopes for the Little Dom’s team, though they’re still looking for CDC and GM as of last weeks Craigslist ads. Would love to see SY kitchen in the space.
How unfortunate that Alma is going to have such high prices. I was looking forward to something more akin to their Public Market menu so probably won't be a regular. Hopefully they will adjust this with time.
