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Santa Barbara Planning Commission Takes Up Affordable Housing
Adding affordable housing options to the city of Santa Barbara can be a touchy subject.
The city Planning Commission on Thursday discussed a development feasibility study that examined affordability and creating a mobility-oriented development area (MODA) — an area that has easy access to transit, commercial retail and affordable housing, and whose purpose is to create the opportunity for people to live, work and play without the need for a car, commissioners said.
Consultants Strategic Economics were paid to conduct the study. Its results recommended 60 dwelling units per acre for affordable housing, as well as shrinking the MODA to no longer include SBCC, the harbor area nor Casa de Las Fuentes, 922 Castillo St.
Residents who attended Thursday’s meeting questioned assumptions within the report and urged the commission to consider alternatives.
Representatives of several local organizations also urged the members to consider alternatives to the study’s recommendations.
Citizens Planning Association of Santa Barbara County and Allied Neighborhoods Association representatives were concerned with high-density buildings breaking up single-family neighborhoods, while the Community Environmental Council supports high-density housing along transit routes and encourages a move away from fossil fuels and car dependency.
A “scenario five,” put forth by Gil Berry and supported by many public speakers, would pursue the Affordability by Design model, like the Housing Authority uses, that builds more economically on less expensive land to allow lower development costs.
Options such as employer-subsidized housing, car sharing, requiring a minimum dwelling unit per acre ratio of developers, and various models of mixed-use buildings also were discussed.
While there’s no denying the tens of thousands of daily commuters and the high cost of living given Santa Barbara’s median income level, many residents appear hesitant to pursue high-density housing options because of aesthetic concerns, officials said.
“Often, affordability competes with character,” case planner John Ledbetter said.
Many people at the meeting were nervous about changing Santa Barbara’s small-town character and were skeptical about the “competing goals” of keeping the city beautiful while adding more units in available space. One of the Housing Authority’s workforce housing projects, Casa de Las Fuentes, was cited as a good example of affordable yet aesthetically pleasing housing.
“I’d be happy to see projects like that all over,” Commissioner Sheila Lodge said.
More affordable housing would benefit the community, Commissioner Joe Andrulaitis said. “Character needs to be about people, not building heights,” he said. “The community loses a lot if we can’t get people who work here to live here.”
The commission took no action during the three-hour meeting but continued it to another meeting. The MODA boundaries are undecided, although commissioners support the idea.
The major concern with creating MODAs was transportation — specifically, that MTD’s funding issues would mean it couldn’t accommodate enough routes to make car-less living feasible for enough people.
“It would be like building a great toy but no batteries,” Commissioner Charmaine Jacobs said.
The one consensus of the commission, although not official, was to change the standards of determining density to considering unit size from counting bedrooms.
— Noozhawk staff writer Giana Magnoli can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
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» on 07.24.09 @ 09:06 AM
When are you housing GENIUSES going to figure out the solution to “affordable housing” that doesn’t actually make housing unaffordable to the average taxpayer because of taxes to pay for it is:
1) sacrifice some City owned open space, say next to some junkyard, buy a bunch of new mobile homes (which by the way offer better living conditions than most of what the “middle class” currently lives in), provide shuttle service to downtown and the job is done.
This B.S about people who can’t afford housing having to be shuffled in with downtown business and every development and have living conditions that are better than most people who are strapped with mortgages at OUR expense is absurd and costly and creating more homeless from the overtaxed middle class on the teetering edge who are falling off into the poverty level. Stop the handouts!
» on 07.24.09 @ 09:18 AM
Some people seem to be believe the myth that packing more density into downtown will reduce or eliminate cars. It must be the Utopian anti-automobile crowd again.
No. It doesn’t work that way. Those who commute are those who can’t afford to live here. But they make too much money to qualify for “affordable housing”. So they will commute forever. Affordable housing is simply “economic justice” (the new term for welfare) in disguise. It simply promotes those who can’t afford a home to those who can, by stealing from the middle class and promoting the poor and illegals. The result is lowering the status of the middle class. This translates to the elimination of the middle class as they become poorer and poorer from having to pay taxes to promote the lower classes. Soon, if not already, all you have in Santa Barbara are the rich and the poor - the wealthy and their servants - (the only ones that can afford to live here), because the middle class gets no help and is being pushed out or going down. Then who pays for the affordable housing?
» on 07.24.09 @ 09:22 AM
Is it even necessary to have a job to qualify for “workforce housing”? Doubt it.
» on 07.24.09 @ 09:47 AM
If I see one more “affordable” housing project in a PRIME downtown location (ala Casa de la Fuentes) I will scream. The City should rehab junkyards, vacant lots, decrepit buildings, NOT seize prime real estate… Yes, we can use more affordable housing, but there’s A WHOLE LOT OF IT out there right now—especially given the currents COSTS of construction under the obstructive, labyrinthine maze called the “approval process.” The City could buy some lower-priced inventory and RENT it right now. Hint: I don’t make a lot of money. But I also don’t feel “entitled” to a prime downtown location, red tiled roofs and granite countertops!
» on 07.24.09 @ 11:15 AM
After years of reading about affordable housing I have come to believe that it is not about affordable housing—It is all about the money. The city and the county are worried without building affordable housing they will not get state financial subsidies.
Case in point - recently the city council said they were going to go after vacation rental homes that were not paying sales and bed taxes in order to increase revenue. In most all cases these vacation rental homes are not in areas zoned for nightly or weekly rentals, however the city has chosen to look the other way in order to get sales and bed tax. If the city was really concerned about affordable housing wouldn’t they enforce the zoning laws and require owners to rent the homes full time? Certainly by putting more market-rate housing on the market would help reduce rent cost for workers.
Everything keeps pointing to the money.
» on 07.24.09 @ 11:41 AM
So the “affordable housing” is to for the workforce, but we have a high unemployment rate already and I keep seeing housing prices drop and drop. There is low priced housing for sale, that is very nice, available today that isn’t selling. Building more housing will drop real estate prices even more and continue the squeeze the middle class.
Packing in housing to reduce cars doesn’t work. Take a look at LA!
I totally agree with all the previous comments. Well said!
» on 07.24.09 @ 12:28 PM
I have so many things to comment i will just pick one:
One time I met a coworker of my roommate, and I asked her where she lived. She said she just moved into a affordable brand new apartment on Carrillo. i said wow, how much is rent… she said &*&. Are you kidding? I asked how did you qualify. Are you a single mom, disabled, a nurse…?? She said no.. single yes, I just got on a waiting list and proved my income. Fact: she was a white, single girl maybe 29 years old, working as a sales associate at Coach retail store. BullS**t I thought to myself.. someone who choose not to go to college, and work a cheap retail job, selling overpriced unnecessary purses can get a nicer and cheaper apartment than I, who graduated from college and fought hard to get my PR advertising job here in SB. ( i guess the rationale is that she is stuck and I am upwardly mobile… but i am waiting to see how upward that is.. i still live in the same hole.. and rent and increased every year, even despite the housing market crash.
I have almost considered quitting my job for two years and work part time and volunteer.. just so I can get better housing!!!!
» on 07.24.09 @ 01:05 PM
When will the well-meaning but utopian planners look away from their plausible but impossible schemes - like MODAs (high density transit oriented enclaves) - and accept the inevitability that the worlds most desirable and attractive locales (like Santa Barbara) will always have shortages of affordable housing, that no magic can ever cure.
In order for these MODAS to work - and not just result in more population, more congestion, and even more workforce looking for housing - would require an almost “perfect storm” of accurate assumptions: that the people living in them would work nearby and perpetually continue to do so, satisfy their shopping needs there, and would opt for public transit (or walking) to their cars.
If only!
» on 07.24.09 @ 01:52 PM
The idea that that we subsidize you adults in affordable housing is unbelievable.
Even more unbelievable is seeing college students and young adults ‘wining’ for-sale affordable housing. Affordable housing is not what the City of SB would like you to believe it is. It is not for our essential workforce. And once you ‘win’ a for-sale affordable unit you can stay forever no matter how much you make. Even though it is illegal you can even rent it out and buy a market rate property and get away with it. The city does not want to spend the resources to investigate.
Until the age of 26 I shared not only an apartment but a room—I could not afford my own room. At age 26 was able to buy a fourth of a major fixer-upper with 3 other young adults. While working full-time jobs we worked weekends and evenings to fix up our house. With a lot of hard work, never eating out, riding a bike instead of a car, at age 30 my husband and I were able to buy our own fixer-upper. Isn’t that the way it is supposed to be?
» on 07.24.09 @ 02:15 PM
I was at part of this workshop. It’s hard for a reporter to capture complex content in
such a short article.
There was strong, creative input from community residents on all sides of these
issues, and lively interaction among the planning commissioners and their staff.
Ultimately, the Planning Commission determined that they could not race the clock
for a pre-set adjournment time, and render good advice on the issues before them.
The chair requested City staff to help find a time when they could reconvene to get
the job done properly, without such extreme time pressure.
Given that the next City Council will be asked to review and adopt a new General Plan, covering many aspects of Santa Barbara life for the next 10-15 years, that was not an unreasonable decision. These issues are not simple ones. It’s far better to do
them right, than to do them fast.
» on 07.24.09 @ 06:55 PM
Lee, since you were there and you sound like you know what you’re talking about, do you mind answering a few questions?
Like what is your expertise as far as urban development goes? Next, could you, given your expertise, guestimate what sort of urban planning skills your colleagues there might have?
Was anyone there able to articulate some sort of vision for what the city should be and look like?
The reason I ask, is in meetings I have attended, I usually get the impression that no one has any urban planning skills at all and no real cogent vision to articulate. I don’t mean to sound like I do, just wondering if I’m the only one in town who gets that impression.
» on 07.24.09 @ 07:52 PM
An50: since you are the only one of your kind here why don’t you just go back where you came from where apparently they have other spawn just like you?
» on 07.24.09 @ 08:03 PM
The “planning” is done with too many false assumptions and my intelligence is insulted if they expect us to swallow this B.S.
First bad premise - affordable housing obviously is not affordable if it has to be subsidized. How about an old name like public housing. Don’t assume we don’t recognize it by a different name. Call it what it is. Calling it “Workforce Housing” is a lie too.
Second# bad premise we are supposed to believe is that somehow this will house more people or help people stay in their homes. Yes it is all about the money, to the extent that you should not be surprised if you see more and more people renting in apartment complexes booted out in the street to make way for affordable housing conversions. That means if your apt is converted - you who make too much to qualify for affordable housing will be homeless.
Third bad premise is that people who qualify for “workforce housing” will actually be in the workforce.
Fourth bad premise: housing the “workforce” close to work means they will never drive anywhere, not to shop, not to go out of town, not to go to the beach, not to go to the grocery store to cash WIC checks…nothing. They will walk or take the bus everywhere they go forever. Right.
» on 07.24.09 @ 08:10 PM
All of the comments are right on. I’m glad to know that I am not the only one who is not fooled by the antics of the City and planners. In fact it looks like they are fooling nobody. Hope they are reading.
» on 07.24.09 @ 10:45 PM
Does anyone here seriously think that anyone on the city council or, even less, anyone on the appointed city planning commission is going to pay the slightest bit of attention to anything written here? I don’t think so.
Consider, also, then, that those of us reading and writing here are at least sufficiently interested in the issues to read AND write about them, to comment and even, for some of us, to attend or watch these meetings - and certainly to read news stories. That makes us probably less than 1/10 of 1% of the voting populace, which itself is about 30% of the adult population.
And, even so, no one on those appointed boards will change their minds based on what anyone says here. And the only reason anyone on the council or would-be council listens is because this is an election year—- and as Dale Francisco’s presence shows, elections do have consequences.
I was unable to be present at that noon-time Thursday/workday meeting. The only time it is to be rerun is apparently tomorrow, Saturday, at 5. (Maybe there is also computer access, but it is not a good solution, especially for those of us with Macs. ) At the very least, they could rerun more often and at better times the Plan SB meetings….
» on 07.25.09 @ 09:55 AM
You cannot have a great vision if your starting point is consensus planning. These work shops do nothing but let government off the hook for articulating anything other than the lowest common denominator, at best a mediocre vision. At some point, the public has to acknowledge that urban planning is out of their expertise and start voting for leaders rather than panderers.
As for SBreader, when you pull yer head out of your arse long enough to breath fresh air, you just might find there are more of us than you think.
» on 07.25.09 @ 11:11 AM
So what is your point? We should not comment here?
» on 07.25.09 @ 11:37 AM
The housing in Goleta and S.B will drop another 50%, and we will see homes in the high 200’s soon, and condos in the $150K range—-we dont need affordable housing its coming fast.
Liberal liar loan pushed the prices up—No Job, No down, no credit, on welfare, Barney Frank said you should own a home—Liberalism at work…
» on 07.25.09 @ 01:11 PM
My guess, judging from the context and sequence of comments, is that Lee Moldaver mutates into sbreader when he wants to spout off. Yep, there are more than you think, slowly rising from their day to day responsibilities and they are getting pissed as they are awakening to the progressives nymphs they trusted to run the govt. that are stealing everything they own while they simply try to work hard for a simple living and to be able to afford feeding the growing and ever more demanding government monster.
» on 07.25.09 @ 11:02 PM
What the Commission should realize that California Tax Credit Allocation Committee (CATCAC), a division of the State of California Treasurer awards points in their application when properties are built near transit lines, and within walking distance of full-service supermarkets, and provides social services to the residents. But what the CATCAC does not recognize is unit size, it does care about number of bedrooms and that is what will get the developer awarded points and eventually HUD funding for the project.
What needs to be built in Santa Barbara, and particularly the South Coast is Workforce Housing, which is a contract between the City/County the developing organization and the resident and the property is managed through the local government agency. These are people who are just below the area median income but still do not qualify for a conventional loan. Income cannot exceed a certain amount, verified employment in the community, are willing to stay in the home for at least 8 years, and the property cannot be sold to another party that do not qualify to the standards, and it is at the discretion of the local government agency to monitor, maintain, and manage these properties. These types of properties are excellent for families of first responders like Police, Fire, Military, and medical personnel, who need to be available on a on-call basis.
Affordable housing is a good vehicle to assist those who do the jobs and respond when called upon.
» on 07.26.09 @ 10:56 AM
NPO, this is the problem. Yes work force housing is GOOD. But unfortunately with out a grand vision for the city, community and region at large, housing advocacy ends up as the dreaded “urban infill” project coming to the vacant lot in a neighborhood near your. That is not to say that planners aren’t looking at regional and local zoning and land use, they do. It is that the only vision they have is by consensus which leads us down to the lowest common denominator, planned mediocrity. I do not blame my liberal and conservative friends in the advocacy business; they have watched this town drum anyone with a vision that did not involve doing nothing, right out of town. The local narcoleptic formaldehyde convention has no vision at all except don’t change anything ever. It does not matter that even though these idiots don’t want population growth they have it every damned work day when 25,000 people show up in their area to work every week day. I don’t know about you but if these 25,000 people are going to spend 50 hours a week on my roads, in my stores and participating in local week day events in my town, they might as well live here and pay local property taxes too.
Anyway, vision is the key, some of us have it, most don’t and the only ones advocating their vision are the ones that haven’t any.
» on 07.26.09 @ 12:42 PM
For-sale workforce housing as implemented in SB in a joke. Once someone qualifies and actually ‘wins’ an affordable for-sale home their income can skyrocket and yet they are legally able to stay in the subsidized home paying property taxes at a fraction of the market rate. Does in make sense that a 20 some year old college students qualifies for subsidized housing? What about a 20 some year old working at a retail job in the downtown area? Does it make sense that companies and institutions can build affordable housing for their workers with the tax payers are forced to subsidize them through lower property taxes?
To top it off the city/county does not appear to sufficiently monitor the residents for conformance to the rules—a few years ago a study found that something like 25% of the for-sale subsided home owners were not in compliance.
Unless the housing market continues to deteriorate we probably do need subsidized affordable housing however we need to change the rules; Affordable housing should be rental housing, not for-sale. Once the occupants income goes above the qualifying level they should move to market rate housing. Tax payers should not be required to subsidize company or institiutional workforce housing through lower property taxes (not even for Cottage Hospitals, UCSB or Westmont College). We should have tighter rules on who qualifies for affordable housing so we can actually provide it for those essential services people.
» on 07.26.09 @ 02:00 PM
The prices are going down so fast that it want make any difference. If you cant afford S.B move to a much cheaper county—or Lompoc—100K homes—Big government at work doing nothing as usual??
» on 07.27.09 @ 12:20 PM
Does anyone know how to find real cost of living numbers for Santa Barbara? I need them for a wage study for work.
I guess I don’t believe that besides housing, living/working in Santa Baraba is THAT much more costly. The gas is 10 cents more (15k miles per year and 20mi/gal = $75/YEAR total additional cost). The major supermarkets pricing is the same in every county around here.
Where can I get numbers to support a Cost of Living increase?
» on 07.29.09 @ 10:33 PM
If this isn’t the biggest scam , I don’t know what is. San Diego has a glut of high-density empty condos.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-condobust27-2009jul27,0,881890.story
If this was not about developers making a killing the City could simply buy rundown apartment building and house workers there. It would be so much cheaper than all the man-hours and spending used to pass another unwanted development.
These projects are welfare for the City workers, architects and builders. The politicians are battered down or on the take.
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