••• “The Santa Barbara City Council passed a temporary rent freeze in a 4-3 vote on Tuesday, putting a halt on rent increases for up to a year while the City Council works toward drafting a more permanent rent stabilization ordinance to be considered later in 2026.” Another reason never to become a landlord in Santa Barbara…. —Independent
••• “UC Santa Barbara Grad and Healthcare Worker Shares Experience of Detention and Deportation” by ICE. The man in question, Jupiter Lara Castillo, is a “DACA recipient whose legal status had been secure for nearly two decades [and who] had been in the country since he was 7 years old, and he had always renewed his paperwork.” —Independent
••• “Santa Barbara County’s supervisors unanimously approved a 72-hour festival ban for the first weekend of UCSB’s spring quarter, known as Deltopia weekend. The ordinance would effectively cancel the annual unsanctioned street party but would permit a sanctioned event through a government organization, like the Isla Vista Community Services District.” —Independent
••• “Back-to-back storms in December and early January forced Santa Barbara Airport to close its facility because of flooding on the runways, and [about 50 perfect of] flights were canceled each time,” so the airport is working to address the situation. “Future construction could include storm drainage systems, drainage structures, drainage channel grading, erosion control measures, flood control and detention basins.” —Noozhawk
••• “A draft federal environmental study released this week proposes opening up to 850,000 acres of land in Central California for oil and gas leasing, including areas in and around Lompoc, the Santa Ynez Valley and Santa Maria. Public comments about the proposal will be accepted through March 6, and the Bureau of Land Management has scheduled two online public hearings on Jan. 29, and Feb. 3. […] The analysis includes parcels in Santa Barbara County including lands near Vandenberg Space Force Base, the Purisima Hills, the Cuyama Valley and Highway 154, as well as areas in Ventura, San Luis Obispo and Kern counties. The plan affects approximately 400,000 acres of public lands, including park, ecological reserves, and beaches across the Central Coast.” —Santa Maria Times
••• “Santa Barbara Dojo officially opened its new Goleta location […] at 177 S. Turnpike Road.” —Noozhawk
••• The Montecito Inn is redecorating again: “About 60 out of the hotel’s 61 rooms will be redone in stages, with 15 rooms closed for 15 days at a time. The work will mostly be related to updating furniture, changing out carpeting, fixtures, and other finishings, but no major renovations or construction are planned.” —Noozhawk
••• “The plan to bring a Metrolink train from Ventura County to Santa Barbara and Goleta has been derailed. A series of delays stemming from prolonged contract discussions forced The Los Angeles-San Diego-San Luis Obispo Rail Corridor Agency, LOSSAN, to pull the plug. […] Instead, the LOSSAN board of directors has opted to provide the train service itself from Ventura County all the way to San Luis Obispo. […] The LOSSAN service, which would be on a Pacific Surfliner Amtrak train, could start as early as April 2026.” —Santa Barbara News-Press
••• There’s a fascinating ad on page 14 of the Independent.
••• “For the first time in three years, the coastal two-lane [Highway 1] will be completely open for an uninterrupted drive of the roughly 100 miles between Carmel and Cambria.” It reopened yesterday. —Los Angeles Times
••• “The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing team is offering docent-led tours that give the public an early look at the world’s largest wildlife crossing [over Highway 101 near Calabasas] ahead of its official opening, expect to happen in late 2026. These guided walks explore the impact, design, and purpose of the crossing, which was built to safely reconnect wildlife habitats divided by the freeway.” —Secret Los Angeles (and @Socaloutdoorexplorer posted an aerial timelapse showing the progress of the landscaping); the photo below, presumably not recent, is courtesy Caltrans District 7
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I’m glad there is an animal crossing
I’m wondering if you missed the broad exceptions to the moratorium? It’s quite a few paragraphs down:
“The temporary rent freeze does not apply to any units built in the past 30 years; single-family dwelling units and most condos; transient occupancies such as hotels and motels; institutional or government housing; or units subject to affordability covenants. The moratorium will last through December 31, 2026.”
I’m a local landlord. I rent out one single family dwelling. So my property isn’t subject to the moratorium — but I’d be ok if it was. Why? because I’m not sitting on an oversized mortgage or a ton of deferred maintenance. Renting out property is a business, but many landlords don’t treat it that way. Being a landlord isn’t an infinite money hack. Maintenance has always been expensive, insurance has been getting more complicated for years. If a landlord hasn’t anticipated these challenges, then they’re really not paying attention to their business!
I rent to a family; a couple and their kids. One is an educator, the other is a skilled tradesperson. I’ve rented to them for over 10 years, under market rate. They’re stable tenants who take great care of the property, and I have a healthy income stream.
Well said.
Wow, thank you for saying this so eloquently. It’s so very important to read the fine print/details.
My reading is that it applies to most apartment buildings, which amount to most rentals, in SB. It’s pretty radical.
The justification is mostly knee-jerk and emotional. Anecdotes like “I grew up here and I deserve to be able to live here,” or “I’m going to be homeless.”
No, and no. You’ll be homeless if you believe you’re so entitled to live in one of the nicest places on Earth that you’ll choose homelessness here over the presumably more rational but less dramatic choice, which is moving somewhere you can afford.
What this will do for sure, as proven by decades of research, is drive prices up and quality down in the long-run. Nobody, but nobody, is taking a chance of building housing in a city with a radical city council driven by emotion rather than economics.
You happen to be in the minority of cases, so nice for you. Your class of housing is also not what’s housing most of the renters in SB. SB’s population is not going to be housed by people renting their single units like you are.
You’re right. No, it’s not a money hack to provide housing for SB’s population. It’s a business. People don’t build and maintain apartment buildings for fun.