Debbie Brasket: Working Families Deserve Affordable Homes — Near You

» JAX on 03.18.09 @ 06:20 AM

It is working families that inhabit my neighborhood. The zoning laws were written to accomodate those who wanted to live on their own land in a single family residence set apart from high density and commercial uses.
Lots even as small as 1/8th acre or a little over 5,000 square feet can accomodate a comfortable three or four bedroom (2 or 3) bath home of anywhere from 1,8oo to 2,200 square feet of living area and 200 to 250 square foot garage ( a total “footprint” of 2,000 to 2,500 square feet). This can done nicely and tastefully while still creating larger areas of open space and room to play or recreate by the families living there and their children. This is accomplished with a modest front, side and back yard so the homeowner can have space and some privacy between them and their neighbors.
How can that be compared with a building containing 56 living units per acre? That leaves around 800 square feet of area for each resident not counting common areas and parking space. Obviously the living units must be stacked on top of each other in multi stories to even provide minimuc living space.
To reach anyuwhere near the “living area” that the single family home described above provides, this building would have to be 3 or 4 stories high or as high as 48 eight feet.
How could such a building be compatible in size, mass, bulk and scale in a neighborhood of one story or even two story single family homes? ( a modest two story home of 2,200 square feet of living area placesd on a 5,000 square foot lot takes up a “footprint” of onlyu about 1,200 square feet leaving the 3,900 remaining feet for an attached garage as well as a yard and landscaping.
Studies have shown that even dwellers who ride the bus regularly still have automobiles, few rely entirely upon public transportation 24/7.  Where would you park another 56 cars or even another 40 cars? that serve the 56 unit per acre multi-family building you describe as a solution to the affordable home dilemma?
Don’t you thing the people you describe as “working families, (policemen, nurses, teachers, firemen, etc.) want to have a car and a yard? Most have working wives or husbands thus they are likely to have 2 cars.  Even assuming only half the residents in your Utopia Meadows developement project had 2 cars, that would represent another 84 cars introduced into a single family urban or suburban type neighborhood.
I won’t even go into the calculations for authomobile day trips created by such a massive development and additional cars.
That is one of the major faults of the state mandated “affordable” housing regulations!
The State of California concludes that very high density residential housing will naturally become “affordable” simply because, One, it will be less desireable to those who want the American dream of their own little piece of America and Two, they are somewhat less expensive to build due primarily to lesser costs invested in the land on which it is built.
In the end, the only advantage to an owner by living in the type of condo style high density housing you have classified as “affordable”, is the fact that, as an owner, (just like a person who owns a standard condominium) they can deduct the interest they pay on a purchase loan from their tax returns along with any property taxes and possibly some of the common area fees, they will have to pay as opposed to an apartment renter who cannot make that deduction.
The common costs of outside areas and building maintenance costs must be born by those who own the property.
For renters it is the landlord, who undoubtedly includes that expense along with his property taxes, building maintenance and other costs, into the amount charged for rent.
These attempts to provide “affordable housing” by default, that is, no choice to buyers because they cannot afford their actual “American dream” of single family home ownership, are, at best, social engineering.
More importantly these type of high density buildings DO diminish the value of other single family one and two story homes situated in the same block or neighborhood. They most often create unmitigated negative impacts on the public services, privacy and private enjoyment of neighboring single family homeowners, increase traffic, noise and other forms of “polution” and lastly place far greater demands on public infrastucture that is often not balanced by increased tax revenues.
Debbie, I think you need to apply some psychology of human behavior to your analysis. If people want to have their little single family urban or suburban home and cannot afford what the market can provide, you need to find another way to change the market to fit the dream not apply social engineering to the dreamers to change their mind!

» mark bradley on 03.18.09 @ 06:41 AM

Thank you for the information, Deborah.

And speak for yourself, “speak for yourself” - The assumption that everyone else wants exactly what you want just doesn’t hold water. Research shows that there in most places, there is enough typical, single family suburban housing out there to meet the demand, but there is a lack of housing in compact areas where people can walk, bike or take the bus and don’t have to jump in their car for every trip. Plenty of people want that type of housing, but there isn’t much available - even in the current housing slump.  And, if we pursue that type of development instead of more and more quarter acre lots on the fringe, we’ll get less traffic, not more.  It’s not just environmentalists and “homebuilders associations” who say this, it’s research institutes, and planning agencies all over the country.

» chris f on 03.18.09 @ 07:17 AM

I am a tenant at Case De La Fuentes, the downtown affordable housing apartments built by the City. This place is fantastic. It is very visually appealing, well designed and well kept.

  Tenants at Casa are required to work in the downtown area at least 20 hours a week in order to be eligible.  That means most of the tenants here are very responsible. Occasionally, we get an unpleasant neighbor, but this is true in any neighborhood. Unpleasant neighbors don’t usually last long though, and the apartments are mostly filled now with working couples, students, or single tenants like myself.

This affordable housing idea is a great success, and I hope the City and County continue this trend so that workers don’t have to commute from outside the City.

» Homes for everyone on 03.18.09 @ 07:39 AM

Deborah - do illegal immigrants also deserve an affordable home? I don’t see them mentioned.

» I resent this accusation on 03.18.09 @ 07:50 AM

I am not “afraid” of people who live in “affordable” housing it’s just that I can no longer “afford” to pay for them to live in a place that is nicer and newer than my own just so they can serve the wealthy! If you can’t afford to live in one of the nicest places in the world, then perhaps you shouldn’t! Is everyone entitled to live here just because they want to? Stop feeding us this BS. We are afraid and oh the poor workers that we “need”. Guess what I wash my own carpets, I do my own dishes and yardwork I serve myself my own coffee I cut my own hair I homeschool my kids, I wash my own carpet. Unless this “servant class” can offer a service that I absolutely need and must pay any price for, they are free to live elsewhere, or charge a price that allows them to do business. It’s a free country and a free market.

» Why won't you give me a Mercedes Benz? on 03.18.09 @ 07:13 PM

Face the reality that Santa Barbara is a resort beach town.  And like Beverly Hills, not everybody can live here, just like everybody can’t drive a new Mercedes Benz.  So if you can’t afford it, quit your bellyaching and move out of town.

» AN50 on 03.19.09 @ 12:35 PM

Debbie, the problem is not that simple. We have zoning laws to enhance the quality of life for all residence including those at the lower socio-economic scale. Most affordable housing is subsidized through density modifications to market rate housing and then pushed onto “infill” parcels, most often in low density neighborhoods. This is a disaster; it has hurt your cause tremendously and has further enhanced the animosity toward development in general. The time has come to stop treating housing like a disease, dumping it where it is the least problem for government. We need to stop regionalizing neighborhoods and treat neighborhoods like the small communities they should be. There is a place for high density development and that is usually in downtown cores, where the infrastructure, commerce and services to serve larger more compact residential communities exists, this not true of the empty lot in single family suburban neighborhood. The entire “smart” development idea was run off the rails by government and industry that did not do their homework. The result is the animosity that has grown toward “infill” projects. Of course, the notion in this area that our downtown central cores should look like low density suburban areas is equally absurd. What is needed is intelligent planning based on a vision for how neighborhoods work best, not what is most expedient. That means less pandering by government to whatever special interest group is barking the loudest and following the neighborhood friendly vision. It also means community activist need to stop harping government and work out the details of the “grand vision” so that reactionary decision making is less favorable. Most of the responses on this column are from those who don’t want the “bad” urban infill and those who see the more affordable units built as a plus. The problem is they are both right but in the wrong location and as much as I loathe NIMBYism in this case the naysayers have good reason to be angry. I’ll even go out on a limb and defend some of the arguments for building height limits, though I believe them to be worse than anything, because they way they are applied makes bad development. It is time we stop applying broad, generalized and regionalized ordinances and regulations and start tailoring zoning to smaller communities within the larger urban framework. Taller, denser buildings are more concentrated in downtown cores and development density falls off rapidly from there. That is what people want. They don’t want a watered down medium density urban environment scattered everywhere, where it becomes a huge impact on transportation and changes the suburban character of their neighborhood. By the same token we have got to stop treating our central cores like they are suburbs and allow higher density in taller buildings. Santa Barbara, Goleta and UCSB get a big fat “F” in urban planning for doing the exact opposite even if some in the public at large have promoted it.  To solve the jobs/housing imbalance and correct for past sins by government and activists it is going to take some real gutsy leadership that not only understands, believes in and articulates the “grand vision” but is unafraid to lead the community toward it. Until then expect things to get more factionalized and polar while little in the way of solutions is done.

» reply to Mark Bradley on 03.19.09 @ 05:53 PM

Mark, You are so full of s—-!

You just don’t know hat you are talking about.  The vast majority of americans want to live in a detached cottage on their own little piece of land in a small town.  Only a tiny tiny minority want to live in a little box on the 4th floor in a monster building downtown like chickens in a chicken factory.

Proof is that the condos downtown can’t be sold at an price and even the affordable condos downtown cant be sold.  Almost nobody except you wants to live that way.  And those few who do change their minds as soon as the get married and have kids.

Whether you and the few of your kind like it or not, the voters have taken it into their own hands and are going to just say no to high density vertical smart growth and no to monster 60 feet building in November when the vote yes on the citizens 50 feet height initiative.

So move to LA!

» AN50 on 03.20.09 @ 06:25 AM

Leslie, you need to pull off the rose colored glasses and then take a chill pill. Wait, no, take the chill pill first so when you take yer blinders off you don’t go into shock. It gets very tiring listening to idiots like you pull out the 40 year old mantra of “evil developers”. Get a life, realize the world does change, and learn how to adapt to it.
Now then, Santa Barbara WAS one of the most desirable places to live until the types of ordinances mindless, ignorant twits like you enacted to “preserve” the city. In your fear driven fanaticism you actually destroyed the very character of this once great city. You thought that squashing buildings flat would stop growth, it did not. You thought preventing road building and widening would stop growth, it did not. You thought down zoning would stop growth, it did not. You thought demonizing the tool of growth, developers, would stop growth and it did not. So what did you gain? You ruined the one of the most startling characteristics of Santa Barbara in southern California, its dense, multi storied downtown urban ambience and replaced it with the character of a suburban strip mall, al la red tile roofs. You created traffic as bad as LA’s. You created one of the most expensive real estate markets forcing most of the middle class out. And you managed to create one of the most fascist, over bearing, freedom robbing governments in the U.S. all so you can see more red tile.
The point is Less, there are ways to do things and there are ways to avoid. As much as I love to berate the preservationist crowd in this town for the damage they have done, I am actually on your side. I do not want to see this area end up like the rest of southern California. I detest the current crop of low rise mixed use buildings in down town because they are too low and sprawled out. No amount of makeup (red tile) can hide their hideous shape. Smaller and taller is the way to go in the down town core. The very boundaries of the El Pueblo Viejo district should be where the tallest structures are built and the height and density should fall off rapidly from there. Your latest “squish em flatter” ordinance will do nothing but create 45 foot tall structures everywhere in a monotonous sea of same height buildings. Good God what an ugly monument to small, lazy minded fear driven politics! There is a better way to do it but that will never happen until you my friend back off your hysterical fear of development and let the professional urban designers do what they know best. If preserving Santa Barbara is what you really want I suggest you do a little history study first and see just what Santa Barbara was before you showed up (hint – almost all the city’s tallest buildings were built before 1930).
P.S. My apologies for the tongue lashing, but the emotion cuts both ways Buckwheat.

» AN50 on 03.21.09 @ 08:21 AM

OK Less, it’s obvious you are not playing with a full deck and your reading comprehension sucks too. It is also obvious you are new to the area and do not know its history or you’ve been in a coma. So let me enlighten you. The ordinances and restrictions I mentioned were put into place over a 40 year period in which 15,000 new residents came to live in the city. Where have been? Oh, maybe your one of them? Hmmmmm.
Now for a little lesson in urban planning for Less (education) is More (stupid voter initiatives). The voter initiative is for 45 feet not 40 and it will not stop growth you moron it will only push it out. You keep believing that though, because all any bad legislation needs to survive is idiots who think its good. The 60 foot monstrosities you mention, which I have also opposed for the opposite reasons (smaller and taller!) than you are a direct result of the current 60 foot restriction. So your ignoramus voter led 45 foot restriction will just create 100’s of shorter monstrosities. Get it Less. Do I need to go to a 4th grade vernacular to explain it or has your cult worship of fascist government blinded you to all reason? Those monstrosities are a visual blight because they are too low and spread out. Lopping 15 feet off the top will not change that and will force such buildings to consume more area and become an even greater visual obstacle.
Never once have I ever said I was in favor of rapid growth or any growth at all. And if you read some of my other posts around the local blogs (or even on this thread) you would see that I have routinely denigrated the local version of “smart growth” as being, well stupid.
Now then let me remind you of a little known fact about Santa Barbara that you kool-aid drinkers just haven’t the courage to accept, Santa Barbara is not a small town, it is not at all charming and when some gang banger stabs you for drug money you will be brutally aware of how off the rocker you morons really are. Santa Barbara was a big city even when it was small like around the turn of the last century. They built (OMG!) a skyscraping 7 story hotel on Burton Mound in 1905, the two tallest commercial structures in the city now, the Granada and balboa buildings (8 and 6 stories) in the 1920’s, the tallest government building, the court house, in the 1920’s and in fact most of the city’s multi storied buildings were built in this time period. The city was a destination of importance, the place to be when not in SF or LA. It was the commercial, cultural, political and financial center for the tri-counties. So what happened? The depression, the war and then the post war population boom made other urban areas more attractive and SB went into a near coma. If not for the booming growth of high tech industry in Goleta there would have been no reason to be here at all. The city was taken over by the anti establishment types who had a vision of turning this once great and proud city into their personal yuppie suburban shopping mall. So take your little hysterics over Chapala style monstrosities and apply a liberal dose of historic perspective. You and your fine little band of lunatic suburbanites has done more damage to the character of this town than any developer could ever hope to. It is the small ignorant minded who have use government as a sledge hammer to destroy exceptionalism and create a city of overwhelming mediocrity.
And, any time you want to pit your urban planning skills against mine, bring it on cup cake.

» Do not agree with article or it's author on 03.21.09 @ 07:43 PM

SBCAN is a socialist extremest organization.

Thank God their attitudes and socialist goals do not match that of the vast majority of the voters!!

Save our town and quality of life, and Just say NO to their socialist platform.

» reply to AN50 on 03.22.09 @ 02:44 PM

Like anyone-you made a few good points.  Like your idea for villages.  people prefer to live in a village rather than on the 4th story box on Chapala street downtown.

And I admit that my reply was not so much aimed at you or your vision but all those who want tall building built downtown, and that part of your vision.

Now this conversation has nothing at all to do with either you or me.  I was not trying to wave my credentials for an other purpose than to try and coax information about your background.

What you just don’t seem to understand is that people like me are not at all trying to change Santa Barbara but rather love it exactly the way it is and are trying to preserve it’s wonderful small town character for the next generations.  We are not advocating suburban sprawl rather we are opposing the high density smart growth advocates who are trying to transform Santa Barbara into just another big city with massive tall monster buildings downtown.  We are not at all advocating for miles and miles of monotonous featureless two dimensional developments.  That is not at all what Santa Barbara currently is and is not at all what we are trying to preserve.  There can be huge variation in building height in 45 feet all the way from 1 story 2 story, 3 story and 4 story. 

What we are trying to do is to have Santa Barbara continue to be a slow growth community, as it has ben for 40 years,  and one that is sustainable, lives within it’s resources, has a high quality of life, and no increase in traffic congestion. 

It is a fact that in any ecosystem a lower population is more sustainable than a larger population.

We believe that it is change that is inevitable but that population growth is not inevitable but can be controlled.  Consider a library that has a constant number of 10,000 books and can change some books each year while keeping the number the same.  We believe that a town does not have to grow in order to have a vital an health economy,  proof that this can be done is in the fact that Santa Barbara has had a flat 90,000 population for the last 9 years and is quite vital and healthy.

Consider the history of urban planning in Western Civilization. It can be traced back 4000 years and the path evolved directly from Egypt , to Greece, to Italy, to Europe , to America.  Cities have ben consciously planned over this 4000 year period.  Over this 4000 years there have been dozens and dozens of City planning concepts that have ben tried by city planners.  Each one has failed.  So City planners eagerly jump on each new idea that comes long hoping that it will finally be the elusive “answer”. 
The latest ‘fad’ city planing idea is called new urbanism or “smart growth”.  It was born out of the hatred by some of cars and the hatred by some of sprawl.  But it was not developed based on what people want and need rather was based on what some didn’t want. development.  And therefore it is lacking.  And “smart growth” is a one size fits all approach and therefore it is lacking.

  Smart growth is to to pack the people in high density vertical development.
What smart growth failed to take into account, and the reason it , tool, is going to fail, is that people just don’t want to live that way.  The vast majority of people want to live in their own cottage on their own little piece of land a low density small town “village”.  Yes we can locate jobs and shopping in each ‘village’ and connect each village by transit, but we simply don’t need the social engineering of “smart growth” to force people to live downtown, in the urban core, in a box on the 4th story of a huge monstrosity.

Less is More

» reply to AN50 on 03.23.09 @ 11:20 AM

I, too, don’t mind looking at our historic buildings that are 60 feet or mote such as the Granada theater, or the arlington or he courthouse tower.

But the reason they are acceptable, or add to the overall visual effect, is that they are both old in style ( and so are compatible with the historic character of Santa Barbara, and are few and far between ( so preserve mountain views and don’t create a canyon effect and block the sunlight).

The reason we need a 40 or 45 feet height limit is because we residents have no control over what kind of massive development might occur in the future, and would result in significant population growth that such high density would bring. 

We have no control over how close such high building are located to each other and non control over the aesthetic character or compatibility.

Yes we have an ABR and Landmarks but they can be overruled on appeal to city council.  It is a fact that political control varies over time from Council to Council and sometimes the pro-growthers are in control.

Case in point.  Think back to 1969 when developers proposed two 9 story, 110 feet tall, high rise towers at the location of Alice Keck park.    The city planning Commission denied them but the developer appealed it to the the City Council who approved them.  It took a citizen initiative to stop them. 

I have traveled throughout the country and many cities the same size as Santa Barbara have several ugly 12 story high rise buildings.  The effect is that these cities just don’t have the wonderful ‘small town” charming character that Santa Barbara does.

Consider those two high rise towers in Oxnard near the freeway.  Do you really think Santa Barbara would be better off with 100 such towers scattered along our waterfront and downtown?    Thank God most of us don’t.  Or we would have them.

Less is More