Just back from vacation and it’s great to see so many people blogging in, even if it is to impugn me as a Realtor in cahoots with those evil builder-developer types. LOL! Anyone who has met me knows I detest corrupt politicians, lazy government officials, lawsuit-propagating attorneys, dangerous doctors, whiny entitlement-class “victims” and unscrupulous Realtors.
In my next life I hope I am making scads of money, but for now, a dose of reality. When I returned to Santa Barbara from grad school in 2002 I rented an illegally converted garage on the Westside. The horror of that experience became an article in itself. There I was, a native daughter, paying $900 a month for a drafty garage with a jerry-rigged, fuse-blowing kitchen and an unheated, detached “bathroom.”
A few years earlier I’d lived in mixed-use housing in Munich, with high ceilings, a full kitchen and a Kohler tub with hot water on demand. I lived car-free; I walked to stores, beer gardens and one of Europe’s largest parks. While in grad school I shared an $1,150-per-month mortgage payment for a three-bedroom condo in Agoura Hills. At least I was building equity.
Returning home — where the curtains swished inside my Westside “studio” on blustery March nights — I gained real-time perspective on our city’s need for housing. Had I no ties to this community I would have run … screaming. I can assure you many of my homegrown, college-educated contemporaries have — and more continue to leave.
So the next time you go the hospital and need a nurse, tech or doctor; the next time you call a cop, firefighter or EMT; the next time you want your child to be taught, tutored, coached or trundled on field trips, just remember those workers have to drive from Ventura or Santa Maria to get here. They might be late. You might die. But you wanted lower building heights, thus eliminating the possibility of creating the housing options we need most in this city.
For now, I’ll cite my pedigree, since preservationists seem to feel long-term residency imbues them with a special status the rest of you newcomers and interlopers lack — even if you do have advanced degrees in urban planning and architecture. I grew up in Santa Barbara in the 1950s and ‘60s; I, too, am a 50-year resident. I loved riding my Stingray bike through lemon groves before all the tract houses were built. I loved walking my dogs on the beach — without pit bulls attacking as they do nowadays. I loved those big Christmas trees that adorned the center of State Street before too many drunks hit them and ruined it for us all.
I loved going to Fiesta and Fourth of July celebrations without worrying about gang violence. Speaking of preserving our “small-town feel,” why don’t we do something about that? But I digress.
Yes, I loved the good old days as much as you. But it’s the 21st century and we can’t keep pretending otherwise. “It’s irresponsible not to plan for the future,” said one speaker at the July 23 Plan Santa Barbara workshop. “We can’t keep exporting our housing problems,” said another. And the most salient point of all: Pearl Chase and her contemporaries aspired to big things, they had lofty ideals. They didn’t rebuild a dusty little storefront town, they sought inspiration from the world at large. Hence El Paseo’s “Street of Spain” and our beloved Spanish-Moorish Courthouse. A much-deserved tssk to those bloggers who infer I don’t cherish those landmarks every bit as much as them.
But I don’t cherish seeing businesses board up along State Street. I don’t cherish bland, boring and boxy architecture, old automotive shops and run-down wrecks. I’m not happy the former Italian & Greek Market, now tagged with graffiti, is becoming a cell phone store. I want a vibrant downtown in my future; I want a service class around to assist me in my impending dotage. After all, I’m a card-carrying member of AARP. Thank my mother’s side of the family that I haven’t gone gray.
I’ve never understood why we can’t just take the good from this, the good from that, stop labeling it yours or mine, and just make it “ours.” Santa Barbara is unique. We got a second chance after the 1925 earthquake. Higher-density housing and mixed-use developments offer us another chance — finally. Are we so unenlightened, in the age of jumbo jets and the World Wide Web, that we shun newer building methodologies? The best we can do is “just say no?” That’s exactly what lowering building heights will do.
“The proposal to reduce building heights from current standards is in direct conflict with the CEC’s goal to make this community ‘Fossil-Free by 33.’ We believe Santa Barbara needs the flexibility to provide as many energy–efficient, affordable housing opportunities as we can in the Central Business District and along its major transit corridors. It’s better to build up than out. We can do better,” says Dave Davis, executive director of the Community Environmental Council.
“We have much better building technologies we could be using now,” adds Karin Perissinotto of Built Green Santa Barbara. “Building costs and impacts are absolutely reduced by having one set of infrastructure, one roof, common walls, one parcel of land. And nothing affects the environment more than the built community.”
Building along transit lines has collateral benefits as well. A recent MSN.com article states, “Walkable communities are also being touted as a way to curb the national obesity epidemic: In one study, San Diego residents of traditional neighborhoods who had stores, services and other facilities a short walk from their homes were found to be 40 percent less likely to be overweight or obese than those who lived in neighborhoods of suburban sprawl.”
In a poignant observation, another builder asks: what’s going to happen when photovoltaic roof panels conflict with our red-tile-roof skyline? Are we going to just say no again?
Saying no got us Old Town Goleta. Saying no would have prevented State Street’s boulevard sidewalks, Paseo Nuevo, etc. As far as I can tell, saying no to revitalization has never preserved a city yet. I have yet to discover one historic building that has been destroyed to make way for a mixed-use project. I have yet to find one landmark that has been dwarfed. Should that become a real concern — not an agenda-driven fear-fantasy — we absolutely should discuss it.
As Ted Bosley, curator of the historic Gamble House in Pasadena, says, “It’s a good thing for people to take an interest in their historic core and take part in a vigorous debate to get past the emotional responses that naturally arise. Then it’s important to be honest and become fully informed.” Bosley adds that disingenuous arguments are ultimately unhelpful to preservationists, who play to “the emotional card.” Pasadena’s citizens, he notes, settled on redeveloping Old Town Pasadena by taking it block by block, carefully preserving landmarks, while adding mixed-use projects in the historic core.
Don Corace, author of Government Pirates: The Assault on Private Property Rights — and How We Can Fight It, is more blunt. “Everyone wanted his piece of the ‘American Dream.’ Those who achieved their dream, however, wanted to shut the door behind them and keep others from sharing in it. Among the players are NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard), BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything), and Greens, environmentalists with extreme no-growth philosophies. Often, one or more of these groups seek to form coalitions in an attempt to mask their true motivations. For example, condo owners who do not want their views blocked would recruit Greens on some purported environmental issue. They would argue that their cause benefits the public, but in reality only a few condo owners would benefit.”
The “just-say-no” crowd is engaging in blatant fear-mongering — words like Monstrosities, Canyonization and Skyscrapers are offensive and insulting. Save El Pueblo Viejo‘s rendering of Santa-Barbara-to-be, sent in by a commenter, is ludicrously out of scale. Assuming that’s the 100-foot Courthouse tower on the left, it’s impossible — with existing 60-foot height limits in place — to create the skyscrapers they depict. Far more fun — and admittedly tongue-in-cheek — is another commenter’s submission.
Oft-trumpeted myths include “taller buildings block mountain views.” Well, try this. Stand at the southwest corner of State and Ortega streets and look toward the old Greek Deli. Yep. No mountain views over a one-story building. Other architecturally absurd ideas include cramming four stories into a 40-foot building. Which forces builders to create eight-foot, tract-house-height ceilings. Since when are low ceilings an amenity — especially in smaller living spaces?
Taking away a story won’t solve our problems either. The additional units an extra story allows are the least expensive to add, because you don’t need another roof, another set of infrastructure, another parcel of land, additional plans and lengthy approval times. When you take away that extra story you make it more expensive — and, therefore, harder — to build affordable units.
One commenter contends higher density housing won’t help Santa Barbara because it failed in Los Angeles. No kidding. Los Angeles dismantled its public transportation system to its everlasting detriment and sprawled into a virulent, car-dependent neoplasm. That patient is terminal. I know — part of my graduate degree at USC was learning the Los Angeles freeway system. His source article asserts smart growth doesn’t work in L.A. because “… in Southern California work and school sites are not necessarily near train and bus stops. That’s different from the older East Coast cities, where the urban grid is closely connected to the local transit system.”
Where it does work.
By sheer dint of our mountain wall we haven’t sprawled irreparably. Santa Barbara’s saving grace, albeit accidental, is that her communities and job centers are situated along transportation spines: Downtown, Upper State Street, Hollister Avenue, Milpas Street, San Andres Street, Cliff Drive.
And here’s a final doozie. What detractors of Paseo Chapala don’t seem to know — but which board minutes can prove — is that the original design for Paseo Chapala was a more terraced look, like a wedding cake, with the upper stories farther off the sidewalk setback. At first, the design review board loved it, but when the project went back for a subsequent review, the board wanted the upper stories brought forward toward the street. They felt moving the mass forward was more consistent with urban design guidelines.
So, after an arduous two-year-plus process, encompassing a continuing conflict of agencies and agendas, the final design was approved by your elected officials and appointed board members. Never mind the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent by project’s principals trying to navigate a capricious, costly, inefficient and contradictory process.
In other words, the changes requested by the design review board — not by the developer or architect — resulted in the current building.
So if you want to play the blame game, be sure to spread it around. Your elected officials and design review boards are the most crucial part of the approval process. Your General Plan is their guiding light. One insider confessed that government officials are so afraid of being sued that they’re afraid to lead. We need to streamline the approval process and make it uniform not labyrinthine, straightforward not punitive.
Just saying no and lowering building heights — and our heads — gets us nowhere. How about focusing on what we can do? Here are the top 10 suggestions I heard and conceived while writing these commentaries.
1. Change current “development standards” to allow smaller units to be built.
2. Ease “parking requirements” for higher-density projects near transit lines.
3. Rezone areas along transportation spines for higher densities. Build mixed-use and affordable/workforce housing along those spines.
4. Enact deed restrictions so affordable housing remains affordable in perpetuity. Enforce affordable housing policies and purchase criteria strictly.
5. Develop a community consensus on which occupations receive priority for affordable housing.
6. Allow “legal” granny units to meet the needs of aging parents, extended families, etc.
7. Scrutinize development block-by-block in the historic core, like Pasadena does. Consider limiting building heights in the same block as the Presidio, for instance, not the entire city core.
8. Streamline the approval process!!! We need the private sector to create new housing. Builders and developers aren’t charity organizations. Realize market rate units help subsidize affordable units. Stop dreaming and get real.
9. Get involved with SB4ALL.org. Learn about development and approval processes, sustainable living and smart growth.
10. Stop thinking you can export it all to Goleta, Ventura, Buellton, Lompoc or Santa Maria.
The deadline to get your comments into the Plan Santa Barbara Team Planning Division at the city’s Community Development Department is 5 p.m. Friday.
We can’t rest on others’ laurels. Bowing to short-sighted, narrow-minded mediocrity is the truest affront to our heritage.
Call it The Big Sleep.
Laura Hout is a freelance writer and Realtor affiliated with Prudential California Realty.