Council Rejects Proposed Competing Initiative on Building Heights

http://www.noozhawk.com/noozhawk/article/111908_council_rejects_proposed_competing_initiative_on_building_heights/

By Rob Kuznia, Noozhawk Staff Writer

The vote means that in November 2009, Santa Barbara residents will vote on just one measure.

The Santa Barbara City Council on Tuesday narrowly rejected an attempt to begin the process of putting a measure on the ballot that would compete with a citizen-driven initiative that a year from now will ask voters to significantly lower the height limits of new buildings.

Tuesday’s 4-3 vote means that in November 2009, Santa Barbara residents will vote on just one initiative, the citizen initiative, which supporters say is necessary to maintain the city’s small-town charm, and critics say is overly simplistic, and likely to exacerbate the squeeze felt by the city’s middle class.

As it stands now, buildings in the commercial zones of Santa Barbara can be 60 feet high. The initiative calls for lowering the limit to 40 feet in the historic downtown area and 45 feet in the rest of the city.

The competing initiative, brought to the council by Councilman Das Williams, was a compromise, limiting the height to 40 and 45 feet in the same areas, but allowing developers to go as high as 60 feet when they go well above and beyond on affordable housing. “Above and beyond” may have been defined as any project in which 30 percent of the projects are considered affordable — twice the percent that is required by city ordinance.

Williams and others have said the height initiative as proposed would accelerate the city’s middle-class exodus because developers thus far have tended to build a higher percentage of affordable units than is required by city law only when they can maximize the amount of units in the given space provided.

“The 40-foot limit would not allow for affordable housing — it doesn’t give that flexibility,” he said. “We should at least give the voters the chance to choose between these two measures.”

Meanwhile, Save El Pueblo Viejo, the group that collected more than 11,000 signatures to put the initiative on the ballot, argues that lowering the height limits would not reduce affordable housing options if developers showed more willingness to lower the ceilings of the individual units.

One member of the group, Connie Hannah of the League of Women Voters, criticized the competing proposal, saying it would allow for the construction of the very building that has stirred up much of the recent outcry over building heights: the Paseo Chapala condo complex on Chapala Street. Though the complex is filled with luxury condos, 30 percent of its units are considered affordable to middle-class buyers.

The group’s leader, former Planning Commissioner Bill Mahan, urged the council to vote against the proposal, saying it would go against the will of the people. Mahan admitted that he voted for Paseo Chapala as a planning commissioner.

“The voters came and looked at those buildings afterward and they said, ‘Too big, too big. This doesn’t fit Santa Barbara’s character,’” he said.

He added that if the initiative passes and years later a developer comes along with plans for a structure standing in excess of 45 feet that city leaders feel would benefit Santa Barbara, that the city could put a measure on the ballot for that specific building.

Michael Holliday, a member of the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects, said he supported the competing measure.

“We think a city-sponsored measure can at least begin to address the complex issues that are going to be involved in a program like this,” he said.

Although four council members voted against it, two of them — Roger Horton and Iya Falcone — also oppose Mahan’s ballot initiative.

Horton went as far as to describe Mahan’s comment on floating separate ballot initiatives for individual buildings taller than 45 feet as “wacky.”

“That doesn’t make any sense to me,” he said. “But just throwing another initiative out there just doesn’t feel right. It just doesn’t feel like something we should be doing. I don’t like either one of them.”

Also opposed to the competing measure were Mayor Marty Blum and Councilman Dale Francisco, both supporters of the initiative by Save El Pueblo Viejo.

“There’s a long tradition in the city of Santa Barbara of the citizens telling the council what they think,” Blum said. “I think that’s what we have here with this initiative.”

Council members Grant House and Helene Schneider voted in favor of the proposal.

“It’s not a competing initiative; it’s an alternative initiative,” Schneider said. “Let the voters tell me which one they want.”

Write to rkuznia@noozhawk.com.

http://www.noozhawk.com/noozhawk/article/111908_council_rejects_proposed_competing_initiative_on_building_heights/