You don’t know Santa Barbara.

That’s what members of the city’s Architectural Board of Review and members of the public told the out-of-town development team that has proposed building housing at the site of the Sears building in La Cumbre Plaza.

“When I see this, it really looks like a hotel in Orange County,” board member Will Sofrin said.

It got worse.

Board member Dennis Whelan called the housing proposal “a 1970s interpretation of what Santa Barbara has been.”

Whelan said the development had an “institutional feel.”

“This I couldn’t identify as being an office space, a hospital or a corporate building,” he said.

Developers have proposed building 443 apartments at the site of the former Sears building and parking lot in Santa Barbara’s La Cumbre Plaza.

The proposal is in addition to the nearly 700 homes proposed by a different developer, the Taylor family, on the other side of La Cumbre Plaza, near State Street.

Riviera Dairy owns the Sears property and is working with Kennedy Wilson, an Orange County developer who also built the Estancia homes nearby on State Street.

The developer, who is working with non-local architects RELM Studio in Los Angeles and AO from Orange, revised the plan from April when it went before the Santa Barbara Planning Commission.

The commission, however, seemed to like it less, saying that the windows, towers and overall design were not in the Santa Barbara style.

The project proposes 443 rental apartments with 36 studios; 183 one-bedroom units; 201 two-bedroom units; 23 three-bedroom units; 10,000 square feet of space for leasing and amenities, courtyards and other outdoor common areas; a multiuse path along Arroyo Burro Creek on the eastern side of the propertyl and 466 parking spaces in a garage and surface lot.

About 10% of the homes would be set aside for people earning “moderate incomes,” based on the average median income at the time the units are built. Currently, the AMI for a family of four is about $107,000 in Santa Barbara.

Board members also said they want to see some story poles at the site to give the public a chance to see how tall the development looks from the ground. They emphasized seeing poles at the corners facing La Cumbre Road.

“Architecturally, this project falls short in what Santa Barbara is,” board member David Black said.

At that point, he asked the architects to show evidence that they had researched Santa Barbara architecture to prove that they knew which styles were compatible.

Board member William Andersen suggested that the building design change with the tallest buildings in the middle, and then become recessed or lower as the development moves out toward the streets.

He said that “from a pedestrian perspective, it’s very jarring.”

The project is an SB 330 development, which means that state law limits the city from reducing the number of units or even the height of the building, as long as they meet the city’s development standards. The bill streamlines the permitting process as a way to encourage cities to approve housing development.

Coupled with the separate Macy’s development, which brings the total to more than 1,100 units, the upper State Street area is expected to be wholly transformed, with expected impacts on traffic congestion and local schools.

No construction is expected to happen before 2028.

Fred Sweeney, an architect who spoke during public comment, criticized the design.

“Folks, you need to get a designer who understands Santa Barbara architecture to be part of your team,” Sweeney said.

He said the proposed housing structures looked like buildings in downtown Los Angeles — “big rectangular buildings that have been decorated.”

“You don’t understand how Santa Barbara architecture works,” Sweeney said, “and you don’t understand what a paseo is.”

He told the developers to hire a local architect to help them understand Santa Barbara, and if they don’t, “you are going to be at this for a very, very long time.”

RC Alley, an architect for AO, said he spent time studying Santa Barbara.

“I would say we are very cognizant of what happens in Santa Barbara,” Alley said. “A building of this scale, it is very hard to translate design details of a Santa Barbara-style project, either a Spanish Colonial Revival or a Mediterranean style.”

The developers plan to take the commission’s feedback and return later with changes.