Exactly how tall a three-story, mixed-used development now under construction on Santa Barbara’s Coast Village Road will be is still under consideration 13 years after the project’s original application was submitted to the city.
The development will replace a Union 76 gas station, which was torn down last September, and will feature two stories of residential units over a retail ground floor.
The project was back at Santa Barbara’s Architectural Board of Review this week for the latest in a long history of city-review meetings, due this time to some modest changes to the design, including minor exterior alterations and increasing the height 13 inches to 36 feet, 7 inches.
When the project last came before the ABR, the board had been mostly opposed to an increase in height — a major sticking point for the area’s residents with concerns over its mass, bulk and scale.
At this week’s meeting, board member Howard Wittausch said that during a meeting to go over the designs with architect Jeff Gorrell, the two concluded that it was too late in the game to lower the height.
“After thorough study, it does appear that the 13 inches would be a problem to bring down,” Wittausch told his colleagues.
Gorrell said the height difference was due to changes in structure codes, and that the building’s type of living spaces would be better suited to the higher ceilings the modification affords.
He and Wittausch said the building is well in line with other three-story structures surveyed in Santa Barbara.
The bottom floor of the 18,600-square-foot building will be 4,800 square feet of commercial space. Above will be two 3-bedroom condominiums and three 2-bedroom condos.
The five units are one fewer than what was planned a year ago. Thirty-six parking spots are also planned.
Santa Barbara businessman John Price, who owns numerous gas stations in the area, is behind the project, which has survived organized opposition, appeals and Santa Barbara’s lengthy review and approval process since its original application was submitted in 2004.
The size, bulk and scale of the project drew the ire of numerous residents, neighbors and nearby businesses, who balked at the proposed height. Opponents said the proposed building would obstruct views and would have a “canyonization” effect at the eastern entrance to Coast Village Road and Santa Barbara.
Directly across the street from the construction site is the three-story Montecito Inn, which Gorrell estimated to be about 41 feet tall. A primary request of opponents was to reduce the height of Price’s project to two stories.
Other residents had come out in support of the project, saying that the Spanish colonial-style building was a much nicer development to greet people entering the city than a gas station.
The Planning Commission’s approval in 2008 and the ABR’s approval in 2009 were both appealed to the City Council, which sided with the review boards in both cases.
Hearings and reviews at the Planning Commission and ABR continued into 2015, though, as the project wended its way through the development process.
Right next to the development is the structurally unusual Olive Mill Road interchange, which will be reconfigured into a roundabout as a side project of the massive Highway 101 widening effort.
Currently, the complicated intersection features five stop signs where Coast Village and Olive Mill roads, North Jameson Lane and the Highway 101 entrance and exit ramps all meet.
That project, too, has been controversial, with a number of residents arguing that whatever benefits are generated will be far outweighed by the financial costs of constructing the roundabout.
— Noozhawk staff writer Sam Goldman can be reached at sgoldman@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.