Recent Comments

That Cliff drive home was built in 1971 with a value of $100,000 and is assessed today at $233,492. The owners paid $2454 in tax last year. The new owners, if purchased at its listing price, will pay approx. $160k a year in taxes. The property is assessed by the county at $8,000,000. If appreciation continued at this rate (10% a yr), it will be valued north of $1,700,000,000 (yes, that's billions) in another 50 years... Nothing about this situation is equitable.

The planning committing is only pushing for the housing development because SIMA pulled their initial plan on the pretense their profit margins would be higher with a hotel versus an apartment complex. Of course a business owner wants to make as much money as possible, but their pitch to the planning committee is that a hotel is better for the community, which is clearly not the case. The planning commission is not suggesting it should be a housing project out of thin air, but rather stating that the original plan is a better fit for our community than the new proposed hotel. Santa Barbara does not need another hotel when Drift, Santa Barbara Hotel, and the Canary are all in walking distance and have a plethora of vacancies. Based on SIMA's stance that this project is "better for the community", they should also not be proposing demolishing long standing businesses such as the Press Room, a community centered legend of a pub.

Are you serious Bettye! Have you been there as a tourist? It’s a thriving community that yes relies on tourists…isn’t that what Santa Barbara also thrives on. It’s a model that State Street would benefit from instead of pushing people away. We need tourism.

When we moved here 13 years ago it was a lot cheaper than the Bay Area/Silicon Valley. Covid seemed to make prices go crazy. I know people can move here and work remote with big salaries (and both my kids do work remote so it’s still a thing) but it’s definitely now much closer to Bay Area prices. It’s pretty crazy and reminds me of what happened in the Bay Area foe the last 20 years. Starter homes for 2 million.

The value of the homes will align with the ability of people to purchase them. Without a healthy "middle class" who will buy the $1.4mm Mesa house? Retired people? Immigrants living 24 to a house? Picaso / AirBnB? Dario Pini? - That $1.4mm home is the new middle class. People afford them via many methods; mostly good salaries, low interest rates and a large windfall and/or family aide. But always by struggle. The majority of people who live on the West Side, San Roque and on the Mesa are not rich. These are not 2nd homes or the California dream of a retired dentist from Minnesota. They're the dream homes of young professionals and those fortunate enough to buy decades ago. But they are not the homes of the rich, they are the homes of locals who work very hard to make them happen. - Do you really think people will spend $2mm for a 1200sf ft house in San Roque as their California dream? Maybe, a few will, but that $2mm goes a long way in other places that are just as nice if not nicer than SB and the more we degrade what was so nice about SB, (State St for one) the less and less of those people will be arriving. - SB is not a bedroom community, there is no way you can commute to LA daily, so our population is and will remain stagnant. We must grow our way out of this via good jobs and a viable local economy. - Housing prices will never align with the market when you continue to remove more and more of the footprint from the market. Whether its conversion to "Low Income" units, and removal from the tax base (government buildings do not pay property tax), or the continued march of the "Historically Significant" crowd that deems anything older than a VW bug as “significant”. The more properties that are removed from the market, the higher the cost of the ones which are not… There are thousands of properties listed on that list. It’s crazy and it’s stupid. Nostalgia is not historical. Yet that’s what we have. - Zoning is one aspect, many argue that we need density. But professionals want single family homes. They want a yard. They want a garage. That’s not going to change. Who wants to live in a place like SB and have a storage closet and a single space in an underground garage and a tiny balcony? Part time residents, or young single professionals, that’s who. Not families. Not dogs. - It’s all about the myths of the past. Too many people who are gifted Prop 13 tax rates and 30 years of appreciation control the process. Again, it’s the local government that a huge part of the problem. Whether the nosey and bored that inject their opinion into everything, or the hugely bloated workforce - we have 2x the number of city employees of any comparably sized town in the state. The process and people who control the city are cemented in the past and for some reason, think their opinions are more important. - Make no mistake. Like many aspects in play today, this is a generational fight. The kids are not alright. - SB is not going to improve before it gets worse. I supposed we can sit back and wait for the quake. That’s one thing that is absolutely inevitable and one thing that will impact every decision and every resident. It’s also why SB is as beautiful as it is. Homogenized or not, its style is world famous and is widely considered one of the most beautiful places on earth. It didn’t come to be as a result of committees, consultants or by accident. It happened by force and through a lot of hard work and commitment to build and improve this place future generations. We must do the same if we want it to survive let alone thrive.

I love SB and I agree that the fact that most UCSB graduates leave because there are so few good jobs is a tragedy. It’s been that way for a long time-I graduated many decades ago and we left after a few years as well as most of my friends. We came back to SB in 2010 and found it remarkably unchanged. Population is around the same and most of the growth seemed to have happened in Goleta. There are more companies but it’s still a tourist town. It’s been that way for many years and not sure about what you meant about being great again. We lived in the Bay Area and raised our kids there and people do go to school there and stay because of the jobs. SB does need to try and embrace startups but I just don’t know if that’s going to ever happen.

Want to reinvigorate State St and downtown? Start fostering startups and attract growing companies with high paying, highly skilled jobs. Building "low income" housing and pushing for more tourism is the most asinine and shortsighted path possible. Tourism is an abysmal business for anyone but the owners of the company. Most of which are out of town corporations. It attracts short term visitors on tight budgets and creates terrible jobs for low skilled workers. Low income, low skilled jobs that pay so little that they leave very little disposable income. In fact, they often push people into the very government subsidies that take more and more away from the community. How many low wage tourism workers are using EBT? Are they also the same folks qualifying for these low income housing builds? How about health care and other essential services? - How do you expect retail and restaurants to thrive in an area that is surrounded by working poor? These people do not have the disposable income to buy $200 sweaters or eat $18 burritos. They are living paycheck to paycheck, barely able to survive. That’s reality. It sucks for everyone. - The idea that State St and the downtown corridor should build more low-income housing is ridiculously stupid. It adds to the inevitable. More Govt. funding a lower tax base and a less and less attractive community. - It is insane that in an area with one of the greatest engineering schools in the world we dont foster and attract high paying jobs or entities. For every startup or tech job downtown, there are dozens of low wage, low skilled ones. - But none of this is in the works. Because the city wants their monthly dose of heroin - Transit Occupancy Tax. So they can pay for their bloated workforce, bloated salaries, bloated benefits and service our bloated debt. In SB, the government is the single largest employer. Whether directly, as in the State, County, City, or the Feds out at Vandenberg or indirectly via govt subsides and the ancillary businesses that rely on their dollars. We are in essence, a socialized economy. - Communters do not participate in the community. They dont send their kids to local schools. They dont spend their money in town. They dont pay taxes here. They spend it where they live. Ventura / Oxnard is by far the biggest recipient of our communities payroll and its workforces disposable income. - Time to build a community that can grown itself out of this mess. The only way you’re going to do that is by fostering and attracting real companies with real products and services. Not min wage jobs that suck the life and the money from our community. Not sole proprietorships such as lawyers and accountants. But real companies that build real products and support good paying, long term, full-time, jobs. Jobs that allow people the ability to afford a home, a family, to go shopping, to eat out, to spend! - None of that will happen until we cut our city’s staff, start demanding results from our elected officials and stop placating to the lowest common denominator and misguided factions. The solution is growth. Not more housing but more jobs. Private sector, high quality, high paying jobs. It is the only way forward if we want to reinvigorate our community and our once great city. </rant

Yes, online is booming plus places like Walmart and CVS. Amazon and the above two are biggest retailers now. Sadly Paseo Nuevo and La Cumbre are more indicative of what’s happening to modern day retail. Both should probably be turned into housing.

Lincoln Road was a great concept that has fallen into decline. Mostly tacky tourist restaurants and shops and sketchy behavior. I hope that SB can do better than Miami Beach.

Thinking landlords can write off empty space is simply wrong. They get the depreciation write off on the building whether there is a rent paying tenant in the space or not, so they'd always prefer to be receiving income. But you are right, this is definitely a cart before the horse situation and there has been zero regard to the cost, how the city would cover that cost, is it the best use of their funds, and the enormous amount of disruption to existing businesses this massive multi-year construction project would create. Imagine the 101 widening project on State St.

Completely agree with your assessment. Not only does the design seem misaligned, it's bringing the cart before the horse. I just found out Banana Republic isn't renewing their lease and there's a rumor about Marshall's. There's nowhere to shop in this town. Plus there's no incentive for landlords to get commercial tenants in when they can write off the empty space.