A 250-room hotel is coming to Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone, the California Coastal Commission decided on Thursday.

Santa Barbara’s Wright family had won approval earlier this year from the City of Santa Barbara to build the hotel on a full block at 101 Garden St. The project, however, was appealed to the Coastal Commission.

The appellants, Keep the Funk and resident Steve Johnson, said the project could be vulnerable to flooding, soil contamination and sea level rise, and that the project is incompatible with the needs and character of the community.

The Coastal Commission staff supported the hotel project and recommended that the 12-member commission deny the appeals. The commission, which held its meeting at the Hilton Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort, voted unanimously to reject the appeals. However, some members said they wished the hotel rooms were more affordable.

“I am actually not happy to move forward, but I will reluctantly support staff recommendation,” Coastal Commission chairman Justin Cummings said.

The commission is a statewide panel created to enforce the California Coastal Act and protect the 1,100 miles of coastline.

Commissioner Meagan Harmon, who also serves on the Santa Barbara City Council, said she, too, had concerns about the cost of the hotel rooms, but the appeal was based on soil contamination and potential for flooding.

“We need to be thinking critically about affordability and what affordability means and what it should mean for coastal visitors,” Harmon said. “But our work today — and I think it is important to keep it at the front of our minds — our work today is to look at the proposed project on the valid appeal grounds that were raised.

“It really is a narrow consideration that we have in front of us.”

Harmon said the staff did a “very thorough” analysis and determined that there were not substantial environmental issues, “and I agree with them.”

The project previously had been approved by the Santa Barbara Planning Commission and an appeal denied by the Santa Barbara City Council.

Cummings said he wished the hotel rooms would be more affordable, adding that the prices are out of reach for most people. The cost of the hotel rooms, as provided by the developers, was estimated at about $300 a night.

“I would rather see a mix of units, with higher-end rooms and lower-end rooms, rather than just moderate,” Cummings said.

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, including 20 affordable condos, 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.

Opponents of the project said it would destroy the small-town culture of the Funk Zone and that if a development should be built at the site that it should be housing.