Batten down the hatches. Santa Barbara City Hall will be shaking on Tuesday.

What’s causing all this?

A developer wants to build a 250-room hotel on a full city block at 101 Garden St. The proposal has outraged people who want to preserve the city’s “Funk Zone,” and others who say they don’t want another big hotel built in Santa Barbara.

The project was approved by the city Planning Commission earlier this year, but several people have appealed the project to the City Council, which will decide the fate Tuesday.
The appellants contend that the project deserves a full environmental review and that housing, not hotels, is what’s needed in Santa Barbara.

Marc Chytilo, an attorney representing appellant Keep the Funk, said the project flies in the face of what Santa Barbara needs most: housing.

“The city of Santa Barbara faces a crisis due to shortfalls in workforce and affordable housing to meet the needs of residents and employees,” Chytilo wrote in his appellant letter to the city. “The problem is particularly acute for lower wage employees, such as those employed in the hospitality and service fields. While the Funk Zone is rich in jobs for service workers, there is very limited nearby housing.”

Chytilo estimates that a 250-room hotel might typically employ around 85 to 140 staff members.

“It is time to recognize that decisions concerning the development of projects that will add to the city’s workforce housing shortfall have significant adverse environmental impacts when employers fail to provide sufficient housing for employees that will fill newly created lower wage jobs,” Chytilo said. “Hotels are a prime example.”

Chytilo’s letter also contends that construction could displace contaminated groundwater toward the Laguna Channel to build an underground parking garage.

The owners of the property, the Wright family, received approval in 1983 for a Specific Plan, which allowed for both hotel and housing uses. In 2008, the Wright family proposed 91 residential condominiums, of which 20 would be for-sale affordable, but they withdrew that project because they said it would not be profitable.

Then, in 2019, a new hotel project by the Wright family went before the Planning Commission and received mostly favorable comments during a concept review.

The project then returned to the Planning Commission in 2023 and was eventually approved in a 4-2 vote earlier this year.

The Wright family believes that it has a legal right to build the hotel because the city approved the specific plan, which allows for a hotel. In addition, the developer plans to contribute $500,000 to the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund and build six affordable housing units on-site.

“The appeals are comprised of incorrect statements of fact and law, opinion, speculation, and misrepresentations regarding the city’s CEQA analysis and process, are wholly without merit and should be denied,” according to an appeal letter on behalf of the applicant.

The Wright family also donated land so that Garden Street could extend from Yanonali Street to Cabrillo Boulevard, a contribution that in today’s dollars would equate to $17 million.

The developers contend that the appeals are based on opinions and not facts.

“The Planning Commission’s approval was based on a comprehensive plan and thorough analysis of the project’s consistency with applicable land-use policies of the general plan, local coastal plan, and specific plan, and, based on that analysis included detailed findings that the project would be consistent with those policies and compatible with the surrounding community,” their letter states.

But Santa Barbara, as is the case in many coastal cities, has a jobs-housing imbalance. The Funk Zone activists and community members say that building a hotel in that spot will increase the need for more housing in the community, and wreck the Funk Zone’s charm.

Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone has emerged as one of Santa Barbara’s most popular destinations for people who want to eat, sip wine, and drink beer. It also features a robust artist community with art galleries and people working inside funky buildings and warehouses. It’s a community that emerged on its own, without a master plan, or much city regulation.

The development proposes to merge six lots at 101 Garden St.

A large group of community members have formed “Keep the Funk,” and have organized deep opposition to the project. A documentary maker created a video that highlights the culture of the Funk Zone.

“A lot of artists have always been here, and we’re just coming out of the rubble, it seems like, to bring more connection, community, conversation and unity together, through the arts,” said Henry Castelo, co-founder of The Love Market.

The City Council meeting begins at 2 p.m., 735 Anacapa St., in Santa Barbara.