The Santa Barbara City Council on Tuesday approved spending $250,000 to pay for 50 terracotta pots and strings of lights to help decorate State Street’s downtown promenade.
In a bonus, the city won’t have to get approval from the Historic Landmarks Commission, a body that typically gives design approval to projects within the city’s downtown El Pueblo Viejo District.
The new State Street structures will serve as barriers and traffic delineators at the intersections. The city also plans to paint green bike paths toward the beginning of the intersections, guiding bicyclists toward the middle and pedestrians toward the sides. The new structures will replace the wooden palm tree planters currently in the road.
“I wholeheartedly support moving forward with the improvements before you today,” said Bob Stout, owner of the Wildcat Lounge and Little Kitchen, and president of Downtown Santa Barbara. “This will be a great boon for downtown, especially the retail businesses.”
Stout said the new lighting will be essential when the time changes the first week in November so that people are able to eat downtown later in the evening.
The city decided in May to close parts of downtown State Street to cars to allow restaurants to expand their dining outdoors amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The closure has revitalized downtown, with restaurants serving dozens of customers outdoors.
The street is now popular with pedestrians, skateboarders and bicyclists, and restaurant owners and employees have enjoyed outdoor seating arrangements as they await word from the state that they can fully reopen for indoor dining.
The money will come from the city’s Measure C funds. Measure C was a quarter-cent sales tax passed for road and transportation projects.
“We believe this is an appropriate use of the funds,” City Administrator Paul Casey said. “We’re in the middle of a pandemic. We’re in an economic crisis.”
The 50 pots will cost about $106,000, maintenance of the pots will cost about $25,000, the lighting will cost $30,000 and labor to install the devices will cost about $100,000.
Bob Ludwick, president of the Coast Village Association, praised the city for moving quickly to accommodate businesses.
“I am standing up to give you a standing ovation,” Ludwick said. “This is a fantastic item. You need to know you are doing great things.”
Councilwoman Kristen Sneddon expressed several concerns about the plan. She wanted the Historic Landmarks Commission to at least be able to comment on the project.
“I am a little bit hesitant in this moment,” said Sneddon, who served on the State Street Subcommittee that brought the proposal forward. “I think I was not truly understanding that this would probably be for several years. If I didn’t catch that earlier, I apologize for that. I truly did not realize that is what we were talking about when we were talking about interim.”
When it came time to vote, however, Sneddon voted with the group, 7-0, to approve the expenditure.
Council Denies Appeal
Cars Are Basic, an automobile advocacy group, appealed Planning Commission approval of a coastal development permit for a roundabout at Coast Village and Olive Mill roads in Santa Barbara.
The council swiftly rejected the organization’s appeal, with very little discussion.
Organization representatives said there was no environmental study analyzed for the impact of vehicle miles traveled associated with the project. They also contend that the project violates the California Coastal Act as well as city land use policy.
Councilman Mike Jordan said he was not impressed with the presentation.
“I haven’t seen anything, you haven’t seen anything today that brings up any material issue,” Jordan said. “A delay for just a delay is not really conducive to moving the project along.”
The meeting’s only drama came when the presenter, Tom Becker, demanded that he be allowed to start his presentation over — after about 12 minutes in — because although he could be heard and his graphic presentation could be seen, he either didn’t turn on his video camera or it didn’t work correctly when he did. Mayor Cathy Murillo allowed him to start over.
Transportation planners have determined that the intersection fails during peak traffic hours and that the problem is only going to get worse as part of the Highway 101 widening project through Montecito.
Plans call for the multiple intersection legs and varied stop lines to get rolled into a safer and more efficient roundabout, with nearby pedestrian refuge islands, new sidewalks, street lighting, signage, landscaping, and drainage facilities.
About 45 trees will be removed, but they will be replaced at a 3-to-1 ratio. The city plans to install about six 23-foot-tall street lights and five 10-foot-tall pedestrian lights.
Bob Ludwick, president of the Coast Village Association, urged the project to be delayed until the city reopens the Highway 101 southbound onramp because motorists now travel up Coast Village Road to get on the highway at Olive Mill, further tangling the road.
— Noozhawk staff writer Joshua Molina can be reached at jmolina@noozhak.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
