Laura Hout: Height-Limit Proponents Are Hijacking History
Pearl Chase's legacy of preservation falls well short of height restrictions.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Growing up, we learn such sayings to remind us that staying informed is our business, our duty, our responsibility. Sadly, abdicating responsibility has become a national affliction. Craving a quick fix we fall for smooth-talking orators, seeking sound-bite solutions so we can get on with daily life. Hence spin trumps truth and complexity is bludgeoned.
I admit, I’m partial to strong-minded women. And this being another instance of height-limiters playing fast and loose with the facts, I felt Pearl would have disapproved. It occurred to me that preservationists — and their no-growth allies — have been hijacking history.
I decided to find out if Pearl — who graduated high school at 14 and UC Berkeley at 19, and who envisioned rebuilding Santa Barbara from the rubble of the devastating 1925 earthquake — would really have supported such a simplistic solution as “just saying no” and lowering building heights.
Here’s what I found. Pearl fought to save historic buildings, not dumb-down the architectural profession. She traveled widely in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Europe, absorbing ideas, broadening her horizons. A self-trained civic planner, she researched projects meticulously and shepherded their execution. Shunning public office, she remained free from influence. And Pearl didn’t suffer fools. Bossy, arrogant, even snobbish according to some, “She had little patience for incompetent or uncommitted volunteers, and even less use for those ‘who didn’t get it,’” said Joyce Parkinson, her secretary.
So I ask: If Pearl wanted building heights limited to 40 feet, you don’t think we would have heard about it? As Charles Storke said in 1988, “Chase would absolutely pester you to death unless you did what she wanted. Tenacity was perhaps her greatest strength.”
It’s true Pearl fought one notorious battle regarding building heights. But the devil is in the details. The project she opposed involved two nine-story condominium towers, slated to occupy what is now Alice Keck Park Memorial Gardens. I’m not a math whiz, but even I realize nine stories is a lot higher than 60 feet. Taking out my trusty calculator, I did some addition. In mixed-use buildings the retail-lobby level is usually 15 feet or more. Each story thereafter is typically 12 to 14 feet. Conservatively speaking, at 15 feet for the first floor and 12 feet for each of eight floors thereafter, you get 111 feet.
Wow! That’s as almost as high as the Granada building. Nearly twice as high as the current 60-foot height limit. No wonder Pearl joined in a lawsuit when the City Council approved the condo towers. It took a visiting judge — none of the locals would touch the issue — to rule that “the variance granted does complete violence to the comprehensive general plan.”
Wouldn’t lowering building heights by 30 percent also do “violence to the comprehensive general plan?”
Building heights weren’t codified until 1972. Prior to that, Pearl and the citizens who served on design review boards, had enough confidence in their skills to make complex decisions — without simplistic limits. Height limits, per se, were not Pearl Chase’s issue. Superior design was — and I’m convinced it still would be.
Because I know something about smart growth, I knew Barry had just weakened his argument.
To be sure I consulted an expert, just like Pearl Chase would have. Lucky for me, Bill Fulton took my call. A Ventura city councilman, Fulton is the author of four books, including The Reluctant Metropolis: The Politics of Urban Growth in Los Angeles, a Los Angeles Times best-seller, and Guide to California Planning, the standard textbook on urban planning used in college courses throughout the state. Frequently quoted on urban planning topics by newspapers and radio and television shows around the nation, he teaches urban planning at USC.
It turns out that smart growth is a buzzword that’s being abused, kind of like “gourmet kitchen” or “greenbelt” — meaning new countertops or lawn-covered setbacks in and of themselves aren’t it.
“Changing an urban landscape so people have more choices and are less likely to drive isn’t something that happens with one housing project or one mixed-use project,” Fulton explained. “In a transit-rich environment, where people live and work at high densities and have many transit options close to home and work, people are more likely to take transit than drive. On the other hand, if all you do is add higher density to either housing or workplaces and you do nothing else, then most people are likely to drive.”
Fulton added that in the Redondo Beach/Torrance area, selected precisely because it wasn’t a transit-rich environment, “We found that the key to getting more people to walk was not simply adding high-density housing, but concentrating all kinds of activities — including jobs and shopping — in centralized nodes.”
Again, the devil is in the details. Smart growth takes rigorous planning: higher density in concert with public transit. When Los Angeles dismantled its public transit system it signed its own death knell. Here in Santa Barbara — where we haven’t sprawled from the desert to the sea — we have the bones to make it work.
“Vast areas of Santa Barbara already have development patterns consistent with smart-growth guidelines,” says Alex Pujot of SB4all.org. “Compact development, pedestrian access, mixed use, corner stores, public parks, a central business district with tall buildings and no setbacks, transit corridors, etc. This is true of all towns built before automobiles.”
Last week’s tentative agreement on SB 375, gives local governments financial incentives and land-use leeway to encourage compact, smart-growth projects. If we allow no-growth-preservationists to hijack history, if like the character Matthew Harrison Brady in the dramatization of the Scopes Trial, “we don’t think about things we don’t think about,” we’ll Inherit the Wind.
Other sky-is-falling scenarios brandished by height-limiters include their “buildings in the pipeline” data and corroborating charts. Yet when confronted, members of SaveElPuebloViejo.org admit these charts are misleading. Time frames have been tweaked so it looks like an onslaught of buildings is imminent — when in reality very few buildings get approved each year and even fewer get completed. And fear-mongering sketches on the organization’s Web site are ludicrously out of scale. Counting window levels, I get about 18 stories on the building at the far right. Unless those are chicken-farm apartments, you can’t possibly get that much out of 60 feet. Eighteen stories times an average of 12 feet a story equals ... 216 feet. Yowza!
I don’t know about you, but this banzai-pipeline-of-buildings blitz insults my intelligence. And I’m dead certain Pearl Chase would feel the same way. Certainly she’d rail against historic buildings being torn down, but that’s not happening. She’d object to existing historic paseos and plazas being “shaded by tall buildings,” but that’s not happening either.
What’s happening is we’re losing our middle class. We’re becoming Brazil.
Mark Schneipp, director of the California Economic Forecast in Santa Barbara, said in 2003 that the result of all the past decisions is that the community is now experiencing a cultural drain, losing some of its brightest people. “You don’t have these people participating in the social structure,” he said. “They serve on the PTAs and in the Little Leagues where they live, not in Santa Barbara where they work.”
And that most certainly would alarm a progressive, self-educated humanitarian like Pearl Chase.
Building heights are not the issue, they are a simple-minded distraction. It’s much easier to talk about the color of a park bench than it is to tackle the bigger issues: Is the park safe? Can we get to the park — or are the gang-bangers going to get us first? What good is “small-town feel” if we’re unsafe on the streets?
I’m in whole-hearted agreement with those who say we can be doing better. But isolating and criticizing one element — affordable housing, luxury condos, building heights — is like eating candy instead of working out. Sure, eating candy is easier, but in the end it rots your teeth. A myriad of factors affect the creation of superior buildings: zoning, density, inclusionary housing, parking requirements, construction costs, a faltering credit market — never mind a labyrinthine approval process.
The only control we ever have — the only control Pearl and her contemporaries needed — is enlightened, educated men and women in our citizenry, serving on our review boards and city councils, commissions and boards of supervisors. Pearl is quoted as saying “What I watch for is ‘Who has leadership qualities?’ If you analyze it you’ll see that it’s often those who are comparatively free from outside pressures.” Lucky for us, Pearl was beholden to no one. Except her fierce conscience.
We fail Pearl — and her legacy — if we accept sound-bite solutions. Citizens who aspire to a more progressive — albeit complex — vision for Santa Barbara can visit SB4all.org. Citizens wishing to be part of Santa Barbara’s General Plan update process should be aware that, at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, the City Council’s Ordinance Committee will consider an ordinance amending the Santa Barbara Municipal Code to establish new Design Review Criteria. Among the topics to be discussed is an interim measure lowering building heights — without a public vote. Click here for Tuesday’s ordinance committee agenda report and click here for attachment one.
Laura Hout is a freelance writer and Realtor affiliated with Prudential California Realty.
» wrote on 08/14/08 @ 01:33 AM
Let’s keep up in class here if you are going to take up so much regular space on the Noozhawk homepage.
The item at Ordinance Committee on Tuesday (19 Aug.) is called “interim” because it always has been intended to be final as a public vote via a ballot measure placed there by the City Council. Thus, it will be on the ballot in November 2009, it will be subject to a public vote, and it will become a dominant issue in the City Council election then.
So, the public via their vote will be able to chose from two competing ballot measures about building heights. Therefore, limits to building heights will happen unless both ballot measures fail, which will not happen. BTW, invoking Pearl Chase here to advocate for no codified building criteria is a real insult to her memory and true legacy. Follow the money.
» wrote on 08/14/08 @ 09:23 AM
Refreshing commentary. We should all take note.
» wrote on 08/14/08 @ 10:06 AM
If an interim measure passes NOW it affects us NOW and until and if it’s voted on in Novemember 2009. Meanwhile, Pearl did not advocate for 40 foot height limits--she was still here in 1972--so I very well may “invoke” her on that. But I do my research, I don’t hold seances.
» wrote on 08/14/08 @ 10:46 AM
Mr. P. begins with a complaint about the length of Ms. Hout’s article, apparently siding with the trend to sound bites in our media. I would expect better of him. Frankly, I found Ms. Hout’s article thoughtful and well-researched.
It’s also disappointing that Mr. Pritchett, schooled as an ecologist/biologist, has firmly fastened himself to the, forgive the label, Not-In-My-Backyarders posing as environmentalists in SB. The point here is that one of the keystone theories in ecology is that diversity and community texture are vital ingredients to dynamic populations - in human society as much as with any collection of endemic species. (Want to argue invasive species? Don’t even go there...)
Ms. Hout’s attempt to inject into the discussion some perspective of those like Bill Fulton, who has actually worked successfully in urban development, is not even given as much as a small nod by Mr. Pritchett, who, like most folks, has never contributed the smallest improvement to SB’s built environment, except to take up space.
And I believe she’s right about whether Pearl Chase would suffer some of the current foolishness (on either side) gladly; Ms. Chase was a student of urban development, and she must have known the importance of texture that varying heights of building produces in a dynamic community. Multi-story buildings are features of great ciudades; low height buildings belong to pueblos (but even each pueblo had at least one tall corporate building: a church). Santa Barbara hasn’t been a pueblo since before Mrs. Chase’s earthquake.
But it seems that invoking the ghost of Pearl Chase is tantamount to casting Pearls before --- well, you know the saying.
Keep up the good work, Laura…
» wrote on 08/14/08 @ 10:55 AM
Actually, even if both ballot measures fail there are still building height limitations in effect.
» wrote on 08/14/08 @ 11:28 AM
Dear David Pritchett,
I agree with you on most subjects, but not with your arguments to lower existing building heights downtown. Laura Hout does not “advocate for no codified building criteria”: she advocates against an arbitrary restriction to the Central Business District disguised as “preservation”.
Let’s be absolutely clear: historic buildings were not limited to 40’ in height. The post-earthquake reconstruction of 1925-29 envisioned an urban core of 2- to 5-story buildings, as shown in drawings displayed in the Gebhard Room at 630 Garden Street. Lower heights and lower densities were developed later, as automobile-based planning regulations expanded into the Mesa, San Roque and Goleta.
I agree with you that more can, should and will be done to make downtown living more affordable. Smaller units should be encouraged, and less parking required. Government programs alone will not keep our middle class in Santa Barbara.
» wrote on 08/14/08 @ 11:41 AM
Thanks laura for bringing in you expert who just confirmed our main point: That sometimes smart growth does not work as promised. Smart growth advocated promise that if we only put high density smart growth in place that it will decrease traffic. Your expert has just confirmed that in the event that a public transit system is inadequate that the result of high density smart growth will be a huge increase in traffic congestion. But the transit system will not work without a lot of high density population growth so you just created a catch 22 situation where neither will work without the other. So putting smart growth in place requires the city to grow a whole lot in order for it to work. So the fallacy of smart growth is that it will not work in city that is almost built out and that does not grow a lot. Santa Barbara is just such a city due to the will of the people to have Santa Barbara be a slow growth controlled city._______________________________ You just also confirmed our second main point: In order for smart growth to work it requires a huge planning effort and a huge transformation of our city. The residents of Santa Barbara love the charming low density character of our small city the way it is and do not want to transform it into a high density big city with big monster buildings like the new ones on Chapala. If we implement high density smart growth the character of our city will be totally transformed one big building at a time. It does not matter if there are only 8 monster 60 feet buildings built each year because over 50 years thats 480 new monster buildings like those monstrosities on Chapala. ______________________________High density smart growth is a good planning system for a brand new town or for a town that is going to grow a whole lot in population and has only two choices of either growing horizontally or vertically. But there are not only two choices. There are three: 1. Grow a lot horizontally (sprawl) . ____2. Grow a lot vertically (smart growth). _____3. or Implement growth controls and grow very slowly or not at all. Santa Barbaras has done the latter and implemented slow growth controls. And this is exactly why our city is so very beautiful and has such a wonderful high quality of life. Many of us would like to keep it that way. ______ it is a fact that smart growth is more sustainable than sprawl growth but it is also a fact that very slow growth and the resulting smaller population is far more sustainable that high density smart growth with its resulting significant increase in population. a city of 25,000 does not have to grow to 35,000 in order to be sustainable. Change, not growth, is inevitable and desirable. Population growth is not inevitable _____Santa Barbara is a prime example of that, as we controlled out growth . _____Many smart growth advocates say don’t worry because Santa Barbara is only going to grow 100 units per year as we have done in the past. This is only 300 new people a year. But what they fail to take into consideration is two facts: First, if we are only going to grow that small amount we don’t need to implement smart growth in the first place. ( If it ain’t broke don’t fix it). Second, if we are only going to grow that much then according to your own expert smart growth will not work but will cause an increase in traffic because in order to work it requires a significant transformation of the town. And nobody wants a significant transformation of our town. _____Another aspect that smart growth advocates don’t take into account is the fact that population growth cause problems including increased traffic congestion and crime. Smart growth is essentially another word for a whole lot of dense population growth and why would one want to try and fix a problem caused by population growth by throwing a whole lot more growth at it, as if somehow that would solve the problem. The inconvenient truth is that in almost every city where smart growth has been tried is has only made the problems worse, especially causing significant increase in traffic congestion. One reason smart growth does not work as advertised is because all the jobs and services that people need to go to are simply not located within walking distance of their house, but are located all over town and people have to drive to them. People may live downtown but may work in Goleta, Carpinteria, or even Cottage Hospital. People change jobs often, and might buy close to their job and 5 years later their job changes to 6 miles across town. It is impossible to transform our built out city into a city of small “self contained villages” with thousands of new commercial and industrial buildings built in each residential neighborhood “village” with each persons job relocated to these new buildings. This would result in huge new commercial with thousands of new jobs and bring in thousands of new population. Most all companies have employees scattered all over the entire town not just living in that “village” closest to them. __________As for the high cost of housing this is because we are essentially a very desirable small beach resort community, with great natural beauty, a perfect climate, and the most beautiful city in the country; and as a result we will always be an expensive place to live. This desirability is what caused the high price of housing, not the fact that we control growth. Orange county has proven that building thousands and thousands of new units does not lower the price. Also building a lot of $1,300,000 high end big units with tall ceilings downtown, on our most expensive land, and in expensive 4 story buildings, is not going to solve our housing problem, but will actually make it worse, because each new high end unit causes an increase in the need for service workers to service these new people. This actually increases the number of commuters, and traffic congestion, and makes our problem worse instead of better. _____________ The bottom line is that smart growth very often does not work as advertised and most often causes many unintended negative consequences including significantly increasing traffic congestion, which far outweigh any small benefits. It might be o.k for some towns but is not needed for slow growth Santa Barbara.
» wrote on 08/14/08 @ 12:21 PM
Fascinating and informative discussion, and I’ve been tempted many times to weigh in. At this moment though, I would only like to clarify that an interim height limit is NOT staff’s recommendation to the Ordinance Committee on Tuesday, at least as I read the staff report.
“The City Council also voted recently to request that the Ordinance Committee consider a potential interim height limitation ordinance as a timely response to community concerns over tall buildings and to provide direction to Staff on what should be further studied as part of the PlanSB EIR. Staff believes, however, that such an interim ordinance requires more consideration and public discussion in order to properly address issues concerning building heights, open space, setbacks, public benefit land uses, as well as the size and number of units for projects already in the pipeline while the PlanSB process is underway. Therefore, staff recommends that the attached project compatibility review criteria be considered immediately and that the Ordinance Committee discussion on an interim ordinance be deferred until in October or November 2008.”
» wrote on 08/14/08 @ 12:27 PM
HIJACKING HISTORY… what a great article with real historical references and insight!
There certainly is NO NEED for any City Interim Ordinance to limit building heights as is being considered on 8/19/08. Let the VOTERS not the CITY POLITICIANS decide this issue. With the current economy and local real estate development in a virtual free fall as lending sources are drying up and fuel / energy prices skyrocketing any suggestion by any politician that there is a perceived “emergency need” for the City to step in and further limit building heights in our City is misguided and out of touch with reality.
» wrote on 08/14/08 @ 12:37 PM
Why would the building boosters object to the interim ordinance that would be enacted a couple of months from now and be in effect until the next City election in November 2009? Is that because they want lots of huge supersized projects approved until then? This is the same crowd who oppose the Neighborhood Preservation Ordinance (NPO). Follow the money, indeed.
» wrote on 08/14/08 @ 02:00 PM
Pearl is dead. RIP Meanwhile, those of us living and working in SB (as opposed to those getting rents or living off our trust funds) have to deal with reality. We’ve preserved so much of the town, it’s a damn museum. Enough of that nonsense. I propose a 50 year moratorium on designating one more building to be “historic.”
» wrote on 08/14/08 @ 02:33 PM
As usual, I always give my anonymous critics, hiding behind pseudonyms, all the consideration they are due. I am especially intrigued by how a “Former Barbarian” knows anything about what I have or have not “contributed to SB’s built environment” and what I am posing to be. Speculating anonymously about the thoughts and motivations of others really is just a way to deflect from the debate at hand. Anyway, I am far more interested in the Santa Barbara natural environment for its current residents and their offspring. And by the way, I was commenting about the frequency of these opinion essays by Realtor Hout, not the length of each one, although that is Noozhawk editorial privilege. As for my friend Alex Pujo who does have courage to post under his own name, I agree that government programs alone will not be the only way to save our middle class. But building taller buildings with no infallible mechanism to assure that enough of the residential space (not individual units, but floor space) is truly affordable is not a way to preserve the middle class, either. More luxury unaffordable housing only creates more demand for low-wage service workers who clog the roads by commuting. So if this new housing in the new tall buildings is not affordable, then why approve these projects? Alex Pujo and I probably do agree that ambitious and sustainable transportation systems are really the best way to keep the economy functioning without chasing the myth of building our way out of the housing crisis.
For all the feel-good talk and writing about the need to make Santa Barbara more inclusive 4 all, none of that dares to integrate housing affordability into the discussion with any actual criteria of affordability. This only perpetuates the existing pattern of proposing a token amount of lightly affordable housing, and then complaining to the City officials that more affordable housing (both in units and sales price) “does not pencil out” so the City officials, out of exhaustion and a backlog of unprocessed applications, then cave in and approve large building for the rest of Santa Barbara to live with. That bluffing game worked only recently at the Radio Square project and continues with the drip drip drip of currently affordable rental housing being demolished and the space converted into unaffordable condos filling the lots from modified setback line to modified setback line.
» wrote on 08/14/08 @ 03:14 PM
reply to Former Barbarian: you said; “ Mr. Pritchett, who, like most folks, has never contributed the smallest improvement to SB’s built environment, except to take up space.”................Well opposing high density smart growth, and bloated tall 60 feet buildings, and saving our city is doing something for the urban man made environment in my book. Remember the environment is not just the rural environment but also includes the urban environment where we all spend 99% of our lives. It makes no sense to trash our urban environment where we live, and our quality of life, by implementing high density smart growth. So I say yea for Mr. Pritchett and those environmentalists like him, and just say no to the greedy developers, Realtors and architects who just want to build big buildings like crazy so they can make a lot of money. Follow the money!
» wrote on 08/14/08 @ 08:08 PM
Well done Laura! You have hit another home run! I really don’t know why N3’s find it so hard to understand that building heights and growth are two separate things. Building heights relate to aesthetics. They are related to the architecture of the buildings and overall fit of buildings into the community. Growth is related to overall building area and numbers of dwelling units. Those of us on the anti limits side have repeatedly hammered the N3 crowd for purposely interchanging the two terms as though they were the same. We have also hit the N3’s on their arguments for aesthetics, as they continually trot out the “small town charm” or “character” of Santa Barbara as a reason for not liking taller buildings. It does not matter that the city is not small and the charm has long disappeared, being replaced by a self centered elitist attitude in her people, which is reflected in the smug limits community. Another limits aesthetics argument concerns views. The logic of this argument has been repeatedly shot down as being out of context with what is already existing and that the argument fails to consider the buildings in the city themselves to be part of the view.
Nobody wants to have what they consider to be beautiful shot down by others, but it seems the limits crowd has been doing just that for 40 years. When limiters are cornered on this they resort to the old demonizing mantra. None of us anti limiters have ever advocated high rises, skyscrapers or covering the entire city with tall buildings, growing without limit or any of the other ten trillion demonizing remarks put forth by our opponents. But facts don’t get in the way of the steady stream of hysteria, hype, fear mongering and demonizing by the limiters.
Those of you against tall buildings have been challenged repeatedly to justify your beliefs and aesthetics in a logical and historical manner, without pointing at the other side as the reason or blaming growth (or smart growth). Yes we all know that taller buildings can increase density and increased density can mean more growth, but not necessarily so. You can have growth at lower densities and lower building heights (sprawl), but you can also increase the density of the core with taller buildings without increasing overall growth too (setbacks and wider streets, more open public spaces). The point Laura is making is that you have to work at it. Blanket limits and ordinances are the lazy stupid mans way of dealing with things they feel threatened by even if the threat is unfounded.
Finally, building height limits have little to do with preservation and as Laura’s well researched article points out preservation has little to do with what is beautiful or in “character” with a city. Preservation over done is just like anything else over done, poison. It begins to kill and drain away the life of the host. It’s wonderful for the taxidermist, but who wants to live in a lifeless, dead trophy or as one responder described “a museum”.
If the limits crowd will stop shoveling the irrational arguments, character assassinations, demonizing and downright delusional thinking out there to prop up their case, we’ll stop shoveling it right back. If you don’t like a building being tall just say so and stop with all the unrelated BS. Those of us advocating for no limits have done a pretty thorough job in defending our arguments with case history, reason and logic, with the typical response being “you evil Orange County developer!” from the limiters. My suspicion is there are no real good reasons for limits and that limits grow out of irrational fear of unrelated events (rapid growth for example). Just saying no to everything is not a solution and brings on its own problems.
» wrote on 08/14/08 @ 09:47 PM
Laura, it’s little wonder that Bill Fulton took your call. Members of the Ventura City Council have been following this thread since I e-mailed each of them a copy of your first article last month. I don’t know if Bill told you, but Ventura is also considering a height limitation ordinance, even though there are few plans for anything over one story, and it is even less likely than in Santa Barbara that anything new will be built at all. Your arguments are well thought out and insightful. Keep writing and drawing out these self-centered attacks from your critics. Their arguments are being revealed for what they are--built on emotional quicksand and not on a solid foundation of factual information.
» wrote on 08/15/08 @ 02:26 AM
“Those of us advocating for no limits have done a pretty thorough job in defending our arguments”. Really? Urban planning with no limits to anything? “Blanket limits and ordinances are the lazy stupid mans way of dealing with things they feel threatened by even if the threat is unfounded.” In other words, trust the Building Industrial Complex to look out for the public good even though the Builders will forgo profit because they know what is good for everyone else. No wonder AN50 hides behind a pseudonym.
» wrote on 08/15/08 @ 01:00 PM
It seems that Noozhawk doesn’t have enough to write about, so they just keep putting in articles from Ms. Hout. Maybe we should all send them something worthy of printing so they can fill their columns. How many more times will Ms. Hout write about the same thing? Especially when her allegiance to tall buildings is so obvious, just build tall buildings and I’ll be a happy camper and so will you. It’s okay for us all to have our own opinions. Maybe if Ms. Hout loves LA’s tall buildings then maybe she should live there instead of tryng to change Santa Barbara. I agree with readers below who commented that money is involved here somewhere. We should all think of 10, 20, 50 years down the road when our great grand children will be trying to fathom who allowed Santa Barbara to turn in to LA. What city/county will these tall building cheerleaders destroy next? Let’s show some respect for how beautiful Santa Barbara is now and stop trying to make it LA (by the way, I don’t hear anyone saying LA is beautiful with all their tall buildings). Just because there were a few mistakes made on Chapala, does not mean we should continue making mistakes.
[Editor’s note: Now there’s a good idea! Sounds as if you need to do some more exploring on Noozhawk. Try starting here: ]http://www.noozhawk.com/submit_your_news/]
» wrote on 08/15/08 @ 03:08 PM
Please Noozhawk - no more Laura - I’m clicking elsewhere if I see her again.
» wrote on 08/15/08 @ 05:46 PM
Oy! Isn’t “No Limits” a pseudonym? Umm… at risk of being too literal, I don’t see anyone arguing for NO limits… except “No Limits” him/herself. I used the word RIGOROUS planning for a reason. As for “follow the money” I was hanging out with some members of the so-called building-industrial-complex last night… we got quite a chuckle out of that. Don’t follow us “Money” is all YOU want. We follow conscience and convictions… which can cost you in today’s Do-Nothing-Risk-Nothing world. Thank God Pearl Chase wasn’t such a Wimp. Those of us who actually do things, who risk and create, don’t feel the need to randomly vaguely incorrectly criticize… “No Limits” here’s some suggested reading: “The Fountainhead.” And check out Spencer Tracy in “Inherit the Wind.”
» wrote on 08/15/08 @ 08:38 PM
Hey William, they did the same damn thing to the, OMG, 7 story Potter down on West Beach, in 1921!
What! They had a 7 story hotel in SB in 1921?!!! Holy, Toledo, Batman, Santa Barbara was a much bigger city in the 1920’s at 25,000 people, than it is today at 90,000!
» wrote on 08/16/08 @ 01:29 AM
Hi, my name is Joe and I’m an architect. Apparently my sole purpose is to build tall buildings and damage the character of our city for pure profit. Eventhough I have two young children, I have no interest in ensuring a sustainable future for my kids so that they may have some small chance to succeed and prosper in this beautiful community. In fact, I want the population to double, crime to increase, and traffic to become intolerable, so I can fill my pocketbook. I guess I should stop biking to work, walking to the grocery store, recycling, composting and volunteering my time for local non-profits because I’m an architect and all I care about is money.
Oh by the way, how does reducing building heights stop growth, reduce traffic, discourage high price condos and make our city more sustainable?
» wrote on 08/16/08 @ 01:41 PM
An architect asked: “Oh by the way, how does reducing building heights stop growth, reduce traffic, discourage high price condos and make our city more sustainable?”
Architect; not logician.
The relevant question is the converse: “do taller buildings generate growth, more traffic, higher priced condos?”
The answer, in the Santa Barbara context, is “Yes!”
I can see what these folks are thinking: “affordable” housing is usually associated with taller buildings, as in “traditional” price-controlled projects. The Wald or Vladeck houses come to mind; Bedford Sty.
But that’s not gonna be what gets built here in Santa Barbara - where the whole world would like to come and live. Taller buildings here are going to be primarily market rate units, and no matter what their size, if they are nice, decent and attractive units - and we wouldn’t build them any other way - they are going to be hotly competed for and bid up in price accordingly.
We aren’t going to build all or even mostly “affordable” (price controlled) tall-building projects for two reasons: 1) the limited availability of funds or resources, and 2) we have learned, from projects such as I mentioned, the shortcomings of stacking people together based on their income levels.
» wrote on 08/16/08 @ 02:23 PM
Joe - I think there is a special rehab for architects to cure your obvious addictions to money and tall buildings. After they get through with you, you won’t be able to look at a building over 40 feet tall without feeling ill. They might also take away most of your intelligence and common sense in the process, but those extra few mountain views will be worth it!
» wrote on 08/16/08 @ 04:13 PM
Ok excuse my last post, which was meant for another blog (oops, damned cut n paste editor,).
Now then, Mr. No, hey isn’t that a pseudonym, Limits, what pray tell have you and your merry band of N3’s (no-nothing-nevers) done for the public good, besides turning Santa Barbara into dead, lifeless trophy for the idle wealthy and a cheap, stick and stucco, suburban Disneyland for the tourist? As far as the building industry complex goes (ooooh, do I smell conspiracy theory here?), yes I trust them. I trust them to do what any other business is in the business of doing, making money. Where do you nit wit loons get this half crocked crap about business being evil if it makes a profit? Follow the money indeed! What a moron! I mean really what did I predict you would do and then you did? You N3’s are sooooooooooo predictable. Unlike Laura, I have no connection to the “building industry complex” as you fearful loons put it, I use a pseudonym for the same reason most people on the blogosphere do, because my identity is none of your business. If you N3’s cannot find the intellectual acuity to separate the argument or idea from the person, then no amount of personal revelation is going to make an ounce of difference to you.
Back to your quip about business giving it away for the public good, the purpose of business is to make money, period. If you dim witted European socialist worshippers would stop interfering in that purpose, business would be a lot better off and so would we all. I just can’t get over how you people expect someone else to always fork over the money for your idea. Tell you what, why don’t you and your bunch of whacko cult members put up your own money to develop property they way you think it ought to be. Yah, that’s right, you want Santa Barbara to be a certain way, pay for it! Put up or shut up. You N3’s feel so compelled to tell architects how to design buildings, developers how to build them and property owners what to build, why don’t you earn the money, buy the property, learn the development trade and build it up so you can develop your property, then get schooled in architecture and design your own project. Do all that and show the greedy profit motivated conspiracy of the building industry complex how it should really be done. What a laugh!
All Laura and some of the brave architects, willing to risk their careers, as well as those of us unbound by the SB religious cult of N3ism have been trying to do is wake you people up to the very dangerous implications of the N3 movement. Some of us have pointed out some of the less glamorous roots of the movement which of course hurts. But hey, someone has to point this out. You guys are wrecking everything! Frankly and particularly to those of you N3’s who are my friends, I have too much compassion for my fellow man to not try to stop you. The limits you are imposing, whatever your misguided good intentions are, are a kin to trying to control lawn weeds with a bulldozer. Meanwhile, the character of a city we should be looking out for the most, its people, we abandoned for a view and exorbitant real-estate price escalation. No one is suggesting we grow without limits, that we allow skyscrapers to be built or do anything to ruin Santa Barbara, we just want N3’s do a wee bit of reflecting on what they are asking for and why? Yes little ole humble AN50 has been hounding you N3’s with acidic labeling, whipping up the hurt level and stirring the pot. Why? Why go after you with such venom? Could it be to demonstrate the very character of your own movement?
Laura, keep those articles coming! Joe, you and the other brave architects keep responding! You have way more support than you might believe. Those of you who were swayed by Bill Mahan’s fear mongering campaign have nothing to fear. This man’s intent is to get his 15 minutes of fame at the city’s expense. The limits he convinced you to sign up for are the real destruction. A new movement is rising up. It is one of reason, logic and fearless vision. Stop buying into the N3 fear peddling. We cannot go back, the way is forward and it is fraught with both peril and reward. However, we cannot get there; we cannot battle the peril or reap the reward by just saying no.
» wrote on 08/17/08 @ 02:59 AM
Regarding: “stacking people together based on their income levels.” The “affordable” housing exacted from market rate housing lately in Santa Barbara is built for families at 200% of the local median household income. How many slums do you see where the resident households earn $140 thousand a year?
» wrote on 08/18/08 @ 10:29 AM
Laura, I believe you will find a lot of “alarmists” in this town.
Thanks for the “none sound bite” well researched article. It was a pleasure reading.
» wrote on 08/18/08 @ 12:01 PM
Congratulations, Noozhawk, on finding a topic that encourages so much discussion from all sides, and for providing additional articles about the Building Height Initiative.
Passionate debate in the commentary is important, because it reaches many people who might not otherwise contribute or have a voice. This is hardly poison pen writing - Hout writes about what she knows, gleaning information from her profession and her research, and our participation contributes and questions the credentials.
Regardless whether the articles draw a positive or negative reaction, the responses make it worth publishing more.
Thanks.
[Editor’s note: Thank you. That’s exactly what we intend to achieve: A true community forum worth reading and participating in.]
» wrote on 08/20/08 @ 10:57 AM
Someone should propose a blue line that floats so that the approved height limit is all that shows after the icebergs melt…
» wrote on 08/20/08 @ 11:23 AM
Well praise the lord (to borrow an old expression)that someone, with some sense, has written an intelligent response to the ridiculous aspect of the proposed building height vote.
Additional to the article I want to emphasize that a major point that we cannot ignore is the economic side of the proposal to limit the height of buildings in SB.
Consider the following, just for a moment:
1. By limiting building height any further, the builder, developer, or you and me for that matter, cannot build enough of a home or building on our expensive land to make economic sense.i.e. the more we have to pay for the land, the more building we have to build on it in order to bring the cost down per square foot, so somebody, anybody other than just the wealthy can afford it.
2. Okay. Next, by further limiting the building height, and therefor its size, the price per foot will be higher, and fewer people can afford it, namely you and me. But what about my child who has gone off to college, graduated, and wants to return to Santa Barbara to start her career, raise her family. Where is she going to live? Lompoke? Ventura? Oxnard?
3. She will work and use our city resources by day and live and pay taxes by night in another city or town?
4. She will have take time out of her day, and life, to commute 30 minutes to an hour a day, when she could use that time to be with her family, parent her children, thereby reducing the chance of furthering Future Gang members of America (FGA)
5. She will be on the PTA and give her resources to her children’s school in another city? Can we afford such a brain drain?
6. She will commute twenty to forty miles per day, spending a large portion of her income on gasoline, keeping us further dependent on foreign oil, and worse will add negatively to the green house effect daily by polluting our paradise-quality air even further. She will add to our traffic nightmare on the 101.
7. I will not have the joy of having my grandchildren raised in my neighborhood, but I will commute out of town often to see them, thus repeating number 4, above.
8. Enough about me and you, what about all of the people who live out of town and clog our roadways daily, pollute our air, and work in Santa Barbara in order to service us on a daily basis. What about them?
9. What about the City coffers? When prop 13 came into effect, it was great for all of us, as long as we stayed in our home. Not so great for the city’s revenue. Who will want to buy our older home, our in need of repair home, restyling and remodeling it, if it’s unpleasant to live here. You know, the great city of Santa Barbara with the poor quality air, the traffic nightmare, the poor schools without educated parental involvement?
10. Consider this loaded question:
If a potential buyer, whether someone already here,
someone moving up or down, or a new resident to
Santa Barbara, has to pay an artificially inflated
price for our home because of the artificial growth
policy that we’ve established in Santa Barbara,
which has made our homes so costly, who would that
person be?
Answer: 1. A movie star? 2. A sports star? 3. A
normal person? 4. A filthy rich person 5. Someone
like you or me?
My guess? Certainly not answers 3 or 5.
11. Who are we to artificially limit the natural growth
of any city. Suppose I arrived in Santa Barbara
before you, and I immediately begin putting up
financial and physical barriers so you can’t afford
to live here? My actions begin to make dealing with
our city so onerous, the rules so difficult to
interpret, the limits on what you can build so
unattractive, including the end result because of
the aesthetic limitations, that you don’t even want
to live in my paradise?
What about that?
Who would even want to live here?
Oh, that’s what you wanted?
Isn’t it?
You pig!
Artificial limits on growth create nothing good, and nothing good as ever come from irrational behavior, less we intend to create a Disneyland North.
Wake up Santa Barbara and realize that the bandwagon some of you are on regarding these anti-growth proposals is going nowhere efficiently, and trade-in that obsolete bandwagon for a Prius.
Don’t’ be a pig.
Whew! Thanks for letting me get that off of my chest!
» wrote on 08/30/08 @ 08:06 AM
Shame on Noozhawk for buying into this plot.
Every aspect of infrastructure is impacted by this kind of thinking and assault.
This article was the height of incredible malice, and arrogance, and worse: it was self serving advertising...and for free. Have realtors now become experts in City planning, and now history as well. Hasn’t this town feeling been destroyed enough. Do we really need more million dollar condos with no setbacks gardens, or scenery-- people USED to live in their property here, not seek more dollars per square foot.
More cars, and additional density do not bring quality of life, nor housing for employees the barely surviving members of the original native, and 20 century tribes who have to fight for the beauty of life here. These diatribes meant to ridicule preservation efforts flow from money grubbers. Yeah, let’s become Santa Monica and Long Beach.
AND, do we really need a life size picture of this woman who’s face is larger than the Arlington.
The point: Height limits keep the mountains in view, as well as keep in view the maulers who fly into town looking for a buck!
Shame on the destroyers who bombard us with name calling.
You came here, why? Didn’t you think it beautiful. We need no more crowded streets, and shadows from these too tall affronts, and “in our face” developments. We cannot even maintain what we have. Height limits yes, you bet!
It is our last defense.
And six feet under for Ms. Laura--the freelancer spokesperson of Developers. Pearl would seek her out with cane in hand. The real problem: We have forgotten how to live well.
» wrote on 08/30/08 @ 08:26 AM
The only height limit we need now is your ego.
Your even commenting on your own comments.