One image identifies Santa Barbara worldwide. It isn’t Montecito, the Biltmore, the Clark Estate, Hope Ranch, any museum, any celebrity or even State Street.
It is the Old Mission Santa Barbara founded in 1786.
Nothing we have done since has matched its beauty or signature and the City of Santa Barbara has used it as its brand since its completion.
It’s incredulous to even consider the behemoth prison-like structure proposed at 505 E. Los Olivos St. to be right beside the mission and mar the visual. It is even self-destructive.
The 400-plus cars that will be added to an already traffic-challenged two-lane street will take driving from already challenging to dangerous.
The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden and all the homes from the new build to Foothill Road and beyond would be dangerously affected.
This high fire danger area needs the best possible ingress and egress of emergency vehicles.
We are so disturbed by what is happening to our city that if we hadn’t been in the Upper Eastside going on 40 years and invested so much heart into our home, I would be looking for the exit.
It’s stressful for everyone to have to deal with this insensitive, dangerously blind push toward density.
We even just received a letter offering us a lot split to add another $1 million to our value. Forget your back yard — BUILD ADUs! Ugh.
Are we trying to overwhelm the city infrastructure, increase water usage and encourage all insurance companies to leave California?
It’s a small town for a reason. Check the topography.
Abby Treloggen
Santa Barbara
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Santa Barbara deserves more than another hotel. It deserves a bold vision for housing that celebrates our community’s creativity and resilience.
Thinking about the proposed Garden Street hotel project in terms of hotel versus market-rate housing does a disservice to Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone spirit.
The Funk Zone is a living canvas of creativity and eclectic energy, where Santa Barbara’s funky charm thrives in every art-filled alley, artisan shop and bustling tasting room.
And it takes a robust local workforce to keep it running. Santa Barbara doesn’t need a hotel in the heart of the Funk Zone; we need housing solutions that reflect the distinct values and artistry of our neighborhood.
There’s a strong local presence ready and willing to dive into this challenge and explore housing solutions that blend affordability with aesthetic integrity.
Imagine a housing project that not only provides much-needed homes for the local workforce, but also showcases local design, sustainable practices and community amenities — spaces that don’t just house people but bring them together.
Local developers, entrepreneurs and environmental advocates are eager to create a project that not only meets a quota for affordable units but truly enriches the area with a forward-thinking, Funk Zone-inspired approach.
By redirecting the Garden Street hotel project toward this vision, the city would empower its creative community to tackle the housing crisis in a way that resonates with our values.
This approach would attract not only residents but also reflect Santa Barbara’s reputation for combining beauty with function, creativity with community needs.
All we need is for the City Council to say “no” to the Garden Street hotel project on Nov. 19 to get started.
Brittany Zajic
Santa Barbara
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When the City of Santa Barbara approved the Specific Plan for the Wright property in 1983, it authorized development for either housing, recreation and open space, or a hotel.
Recognizing 40 years ago that the hotel would affect housing, the Specific Plan requires a housing impact study and programs to minimize housing impacts, along with a series of other limitations and requirements.
Dauntless Development proposes a 250-room hotel on a four-acre portion of the Specific Plan area. It wants a two-acre underground parking garage, despite being in a FEMA-designated flood zone on contaminated soils. The site is vulnerable to sea-level rise.
Development will transform a curious portion of the Funk Zone into a generic hotel complex, and, over time, drive conversion of other funky sites into normalized mediocrity.
The city is not obligated to approve this hotel. Further, it has the authority to require environmental review of the project’s impacts, including its incompatibility with the Funk Zone.
Environmental review would study the impacts of digging up and removing more than 1,500 truckloads of contaminated soil, and the potentially serious adverse effects of pumping contaminated groundwater to dig out, build and operate the parking garage.
The city must study the impacts of the expanded sewer line, which can serve as a conduit for contaminated groundwater to reach the imperiled Laguna Channel and Mission Lagoon on the beach. The city must demand that hotels include housing for all employees, period.
We should not let Orange County developers redefine Santa Barbara!
Marc Chytilo
Santa Barbara
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Santa Barbara needs housing for its creative community and workforce. The Funk Zone is considered the last outpost for local artists and craftspeople to live and show their work.
To think that we would even consider a 250-room hotel in the heart of the Funk Zone over much needed workforce housing, or anything remotely more funky in nature, continues to render the artist’s lifestyle in the area impossible.
Santa Barbara needs housing for its creative community and workforce, NOT another hotel.
Bryce Belinski
Santa Barbara
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The housing study prepared for the Garden Street hotel seriously undercounts the number of employee housing units necessary to avoid worsening our housing crisis. Instead of six units, the hotel should include at least 40 employee apartments.
The study understates the number of employees needed for the 250-room hotel and claims that just 30% of hotel workers will want to live in the city, while commute data reveals most low-paid service employees are city residents, with only about one-third commuting.
The 1983 Specific Plan recognized the potential for development on the site to worsen housing conditions, and required the applicant to minimize project impacts to the city’s housing stock.
The applicant’s flawed study and callous offer to provide only six employee units must be rejected. A more reasoned, fact-based and accurate study is needed to assess and mitigate the project’s housing impact, as required by the Specific Plan itself.
Todd Demler
Santa Barbara
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Regarding the Nov. 7 article, “Supervisors Continue Agricultural Enterprise Ordinance Discussion to December,” I have attended numerous meetings of the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors over the past 20 years.
While attending recent hearings on the Agricultural Enterprise Ordinance, I have been taken aback by the dismissive tone taken with, and lack of respect shown to, members of the public who have taken the time to attend and make thoughtful, respectful public comments on various topics.
Protected by the constitutional right to petition our government, public comments are essential to our democracy.
Despite the time-consuming and occasionally frustrating nature of the public comment process, it is essential to the work being done on behalf of the public.
A public comment is equally relevant to government officials’ work on behalf of the public they serve, whether the comment is made at the first or the eighth meeting in the development and approval of an ordinance, policy or project.
Public comments made early in the process tend to be from a project’s proponents, often paid consultants, rather than from community members, whose comments come with time as they learn how they will be affected by the proposed project.
It is inappropriate to dismiss those public comments that come later in the process with a statement that “it’s too late.” All public comments have equal value and weight.
Full disclosure: I am an elected official, not appointed; and public comment is the agenda item I most often find helpful and enlightening in my efforts to better serve our community.
Michelle de Werd
Los Olivos
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In her Nov. 8 letter to the editor, Katy McDaniel accuses me of having “killed food trucks,” so I would like to clear up this misconception.
First, I have never wielded that kind of authority, nor would I have. My business was never threatened by the presence or operation of food trucks; I had plenty of other things to occupy my attention to stay in business for 38 years in Santa Barbara.
Second, if I “killed” food trucks, I didn’t do a very good job as they seem to be as plentiful as ever.
This rumor started back when I was a City Council member and a food truck ordinance was proposed to replace an unjustifiable city-wide ban on food trucks, which was in the code. The current council will soon be considering parameters for food truck operations that are more reasonable.
Illegal outdoor food vending hurts licensed food trucks as well as brick and mortar operations.
A food truck represents a substantial investment and, properly permitted, is as legitimate as brick and mortar in the eyes of City of Santa Barbara and Santa Barbara County health authorities.
I’ve asked before and I’ll say it again: Please do not patronize the pop-up outdoor food vendors that utilize open flames, lack proper food handling and sanitation facilities, and often dispose of grease in our storm drains.
These pose a greater threat to permitted food operators far more than any government agencies do, and they are public health and safety risks.
Randy Rowse
Santa Barbara mayor
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Congratulations to Noozhawk publisher Bill Macfadyen for being named Goleta’s Finest Man of the Year as reported in the Nov. 1 article.
Not only is it well-deserved for his leadership in the community, I don’t know what Goleta would do without Noozhawk. It’s our only source of Goleta news!
M. Sanderson
Goleta
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On Nov. 16, 1888, an editorial in the Santa Barbara Daily Independent noted, “Now that the election is over, the flood of travel will flow toward Southern California, and in all this fair land of ours where is there a better location than Santa Barbara? Every permanent resident of this community should consider himself a committee of one to show strangers the beauties and economies of Santa Barbara life.”
And on that date, a baby girl, Pearl Chase, was born in Boston. Twelve years later she moved to Santa Barbara, the place that captured her heart and became her home for the rest of her long life; she lived until she was nearly 91 years old.
By the time Chase was a college sophomore, she dedicated her life to making Santa Barbara a more healthful, more beautiful place to live, and began to embody all that editorial suggested.
Her leadership skills served Santa Barbara well as she inspired others to join with her as she moved from social work to revisioning Santa Barbara’s architecture to addressing housing for the middle class to her commitment to conservation and the environment.
Chase accomplished so much with what she called the 3-C’s, as she stated: “Many new things in this fast-moving world make it difficult to keep pace with an ever-changing world. Let us Communicate, Cooperate and Coordinate our efforts for good freely.”
Her hope was for “Santa Barbara to maintain its integrity and maintain its standards.” May we heed Pearl Chase’s wisdom and remember her fine example of community service on her 136th birthday.
Cheri Rae
Santa Barbara
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