I agree with you about the city's decision to seemingly go all in on tourism. I am deeply concerned we are becoming a fully tourism based economy/place a la Porto or any other number of cities that have been hollowed out, and some would argue destroyed, by the phenomenon. I do, however, think we could do with some new thoughtfully implemented housing downtown. Retail is in dire straits and I think additional apartments downtown would help State Street remain vibrant. Our rental housing stock is also pretty dismal even for the people and professionals who can afford to live and work here. It is a major problem when trying to attract new talent to town even in high paying industries including tech and medicine. I have to laugh when people think we will ever make Santa Barbara affordable, and certainly not by building a few more apartments, but it would directly serve to make it more likely that young professionals will relocate here to fill essential roles or work for local companies.
The final bell has rung in the SYV- Los Angeles has won! Enjoy!
100% agree.
Look up sampling bias and nonresponse bias. There are inherent issues with a survey you have to go online and voluntarily take, similar to inherent biases with having a booth on State waiting for people to voluntarily engage and take the survey.
Santa Barbara does not need more housing, it needs better jobs and a culture of fostering sustainable economic growth.
The problems that we have in SB are a direct result of the city's choice to foster low value services and tourism jobs over industry or tech. So we have a large population of unskilled workers and low income students who will never earn enough to afford a home here and will never have a chance to build a better life, unless they leave. And leave they do. Leaving behind those who are unmotivated to build a better life and those with no choice or option.
The city sold its future for quick bucks years ago when they went full tourism. Instead of fostering young companies or even offering incentives to larger ones, they decided low wage, low skilled service jobs and short term transitory tax boosts were a better offering. So they spent all their time making it as difficult as possible to start or run a business here. They ignored the hundreds (thousands) of highly skilled graduates coming out of UCSB every quarter, and instead focused on min wage jobs and the monthly tax revenue from hotel rooms to fund their bloated payroll. We produce some of the greatest engineering minds in the world, and then they leave for greener pastures when they all want to be here. Live here. Thrive here...
SB has a long history of creating giant brands and companies. But during the last 10 years, that’s all gone in favor of corporate owned hotels, low wage service jobs and menial work. We have almost no non-public jobs here in town. The Government is the largest employee by a factor of 3x. We are in essence a socialized economy. Completely reliant on the Government (Federal jobs, State jobs, County jobs, City of ____ jobs, UCSB, SBCC, Vandenberg AFB) and the dozens of small private businesses that support these Government funded entities.
Without an underlying industry or the encouragement of entrepreneurship, we will continue to slide deeper and deeper into debt and farther and farther from a way out. Want to build a better city and community? Start fostering startups and businesses that are NOT services geared towards tourist. Make it easy and possible to build something here and you will find a way out of this situation.
Every critique I've seen of the City choosing to start this pilot program seems to conveniently glance over the fact that these laws are already in place. The "honest citizens" you mention are actively violating the law. Full stop. Their intentions do not matter.
Try not to forget that the law exists and is applied to all citizens, not just ones that you don't like.
Lately all I see is more hotels being built and "some" affordable housing. Who do you think is going to be able to afford these units a few blocks from the ocean? Santa Barbara is no longer the quaint spanish style city I fell in love with years back. I see these massive block style buildings popping throughout the city. You're kidding yourselves if this will solve the housing problem.
We are loosing our population in SB because of housing and high cost of living . I believe that these projects are way over due and we Santa Barbarian need to stay within other cities in California . The streets are like you live in the third word country, the buildings are old and falling apart within.
Now some people complain about not see the mountain or views of land scape etc , is selfish .
I cannot believe how ugly that proposed development is—it's frightening. I absolutely love that block as it is right now, and I pray it stays that way.
Times are changing fast and SB will be Orange County soon enough. Money talks, and feelings don't matter. None of the projects look innovative, or classic. They are cheap looking architectural pseudo spanish styles currently in vogue like cooker cutters houses of the past. Nothing special. That must be what they teach in Cali schools of design, or what the boss wants.
Same here...agree! The low profile and views are a big part of what makes SB so special. We can disperse small complexes of housing throughout town without building all these high rises!!
True, but $5 LED light strips gets you a lot . . . in this case apparently $4M.
Re: the Hope/State project: 1) Wouldn't this demolish the last middle class department store in all of SB, Montecito & Goleta (Macy's)? 2) Wouldn't it also demolish most of the free retail parking in that area?
Agreed. There needs to be moderate income housing built into these developments, or they need to pay into a fund to build them.
https://www.change.org/Develop_Santa_Barbara_Workforce_Housing
They're saying fall.
“The City needs housing”. Inaccurate. Correct statement: The City needs moderate income housing. Every one of the 10 projects described makes the current housing imbalance worse. The current draft Housing Element makes zero effort to promote market rate moderate income housing. Zero is also the number of market rate moderate income units built in the last 8 years.
Wow, just revisited this post in order to read your comment and I hadn’t seen the rendering. Blight!
Oh, I do hope these rumors are true. I hate that one so much, minus the housing component.
Why aren't all projects mixed use, with housing on the upper levels? Is max. building height being used as an excuse for not accommodating the needed housing?
When will this be opening?
The rendering of 'The Lofts at the Mill' (what a hollow, anonymous name!) is a poster for the mediocrity of current American architecture. These ersatz-contemporary (Van Der Rohe wold be appalled) buildings are urban stuffing; representing nothing specific except the low cost of throwing them together. This is a building that could be in any sprawl in any city. It is hostile to the street and generic to the downtown. I hope the review board stops this newest attempt by indifferent architects to do to S.B. what was done to the Hollywood flats -- remove California.
"these make take years to get built—or not even happen at all". Every person I talk to in the Funk Zone are saying the same thing about the ghoulishly awful Somofunk project. It's been shelved by the owner. Even having gone through many commission meetings. And it's housing!
Outstanding summation of what’s in the pipeline.
Thank you.
I agree. They're experts at disappearing taxpayer dollars via million dollar consulting contracts. I only wish I could somehow become one of the consultants they pay... The public has been giving the city free advice and feedback for years, but they don't listen and prefer to kick the can down the road with yet another 800k consulting gig for a brand new PowerPoint presentation to tell us all exactly what we already knew...
I agree. It's bizarre. It's like the city greenlights projects from Jeff Shelton and Cearnal and everything else gets stuck.
