The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to deny the appeals of two Montecito residents who challenged a section of the Highway 101 widening project.

The appellants, Scott Smigel and Bruce Mackenzie, both live near the highway and are objecting to construction plans for the fourth phase of the highway project through Montecito.

They want the project to include sound walls, which were removed and replaced by chain-link fences in the plans because of flooding concerns.

Joe Erwin, with Caltrans District 5, said the flooding is more than just a county issue. 

“It overflows onto (Highway) 192 or it overflows onto (Highway) 101, and then it becomes an issue that our maintenance forces and our construction forces have to address,” Erwin said.

County supervisors held the appeal hearing Tuesday and ultimately voted to deny the appeals and uphold the project approval.

Several residents voiced concerns about existing highway noise and the possibility of more noise without sound walls being included in the project, which will add one lane in each direction.

First District Supervisor Das Williams said the risk of a flood far outweighs the disruptions that come with excess highway noise.

“The experience of one 50-year flood does not sort of preclude the types of flooding that flood control is warning against,” Williams said. “I’m really aware that the votes that I take here could have results for you or the people who live at your house after you sell it.

“And if I upheld this appeal and someone died in your neighborhood because of it in the next 50 years, it would be my fault. I would have killed that person. That’s the way I look at these things. So, for me, the moral weight of that is larger than the moral weight behind the otherwise great sound walls.”

The Jan. 9, 2018, debris flows killed 23 people and damaged hundreds of homes in Montecito.

Highway 101 was buried under several feet of water and mud through the community, and it was closed to all traffic for almost two weeks.