The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors approved 17 sites and nine county-owned sites to be rezoned for housing on the South Coast, which in total could produce more than 5,000 units.

The proposed sites came from county Planning Commission recommendations.

The county also approved the Bailard site, which was not part of the Planning Commission’s recommendations, to be rezoned for 50 lower-income units and 132 above-moderate-income units.

The Planning Commission also recommended rezoning nine county-owned sites, which include the Flag Lot, the Probation Building, Juvenile Hall, the Page and Fire station, the Foodbank, Hollister Lofts, the Child and Family Services lot, the Archives Parking Lot and above the Behavioral Wellness Park Deck.

In total, the county-owned sites could produce 119 lower-income units, 159 moderate-income units and 42 above-moderate-income units. 

During Friday’s meeting, Second District Supervisor Laura Capps raised concerns about the allocation of units and why more units weren’t designated toward lower incomes for county employees.

“I was surprised to see that the allocation isn’t more toward the lower-income end because that’s clearly the need that we have,” Capps said. “It just seems like an incredible opportunity to take care of our own staff, a third of whom don’t live in the county, presumably because they can’t afford to.”

Lisa Plowman, the director of county Planning & Development, explained that market-rate units would be needed to fund construction at the county-owned sites.

First District Supervisor Das Williams said that many of the positions the county has been unable to fill wouldn’t qualify as low income and that the employees who do make a lower salary would not qualify for low-income units if they had dual income and no children. 

“If we designated it all low income, we would be disqualifying almost all county staff from those homes,” Williams said. 

Plowman explained that if the county ignored the state-mandated Housing Element, the state could sue the county and the county could lose its local permitting authority. The county also would be ineligible for grants for roads and affordable housing for homeless individuals. 

“If we’re out of compliance, projects could continue to come in on sites not zoned for housing and be able to build Builder’s Remedy projects and would not have to comply with our zoning in general plan designations,” Plowman told the board. 

The state-mandated Housing Element required the county to have enough sites zoned to accommodate its regional housing needs allocation, which was 5,664 units. The North County needed 1,522 units, and the South County needed 4,142 units.

There were 93 public commenters on Friday, mostly from developers of potential projects asking the board to approve their project. Residents also spoke to share their concerns about the projects recommended to be rezoned.

Of all the projects, Glen Annie might be the most controversial.

Local resident Philip Tennant argued that the loss of the Glen Annie golf course would be harmful to the community.

“Nobody in Goleta is for this development,” Tennant said. “The traffic situation is bad currently, and you add to that thousands of cars coming off the new estates, there will be total gridlock all the way around Cathedral Oaks from Winchester Canyon to Fairview, Glen Annie all the way down to Hollister, Los Carneros to the 101.”

Public commenters included city officials as well as representatives from groups and organizations throughout the county. Dustin Hoiseth, public policy manager for the Santa Barbara South Coast Chamber of Commerce, advocated for Glen Annie, San Marcos, Caird 1, 2 and 3, the Giorgi site and the Bailard site. 

“We support all these projects because our member businesses consistently tell us that workforce challenges, recruitment and retention as the direct result of the lack of housing supply in our region is among their top concerns,” Hoiseth said. “We support these sites because we need a mix of appropriate housing types as well as affordable levels in order to support our workforce needs.” 

Goleta City Councilman James Kyriaco asked the board during public comment not to approve the Planning Commission’s recommendation to amend the circulation element.

“You didn’t analyze what it would mean to change how you treat level of service, and that should have been something analyzed in your environmental impact report,” Kyriaco said. “It should have been something that was analyzed and discussed before you adopted in December.”

The amendment would exempt new housing projects from looking at traffic impacts caused by housing development and meeting the standard operating conditions for roads and intersections. Under the amendment, it would be up to county Public Works to determine whether a project is implementing acceptable roadway and intersection improvements. 

The Goleta City Council sent a letter to the Board of Supervisors asking it not to approve the amendment. The board moved to not approve the circulation amendment largely because of the concerns from the Goleta council.

During deliberation, Plowman said there was “quite a lot of room” at the Glen Annie and Cathedral Oaks intersection and that Planning & Development is working with Public Works to fix the traffic congestion in the area by adding a roundabout or other solutions. 

“I think there is a solution there that is workable because there is sufficient space,” Plowman said.

Third District Supervisor Joan Hartmann said that while she supports preserving land, she’s been moved by the county’s rising homeless population, the number of families leaving the area and families forced to live in small areas because that’s all they can afford. 

“It is with a great deal of personal anguish that I find myself considering approval of the most consequential set of housing rezones the county has ever adopted,” Hartmann said. “The lack of housing is hollowing out our community, making it less balanced and less vibrant and ultimately unstable.”

For the South Coast, the county approved 28 housing sites that include Van Wingerden 1 and 2, Bailard, Hope Church, Montessori, St. Vincent’s East, St. Vincent’s West, Friendship Manor, San Marcos 1 and 2, Tatum, St. Athanasius, Scott, Ekwill, Caird 1, 2, and 3, Glen Annie, Juvenile Hall, the Hollister Lofts, the Probation Building, the Flag lot, the Foodbank, the Page and Fire station, the Archives Parking, the Child and Family Care Parking Lot, and above the Behavioral Wellness Park Deck. 

St. Athanasius in Goleta is 20.56 acres and could produce 150 lower-income units, 75 moderate-income units and 75 above-moderate-income units. The site is also zoned for agriculture use. 

The Scott site in Goleta is 9.38 acres and could produce 123 lower-income units, 62  moderate-income units and 61 above-moderate-income units. 

Ekwill in Goleta is 8.23 acres, could produce 109 lower-income units, 55 moderate-income units and 54 above-moderate-income units, and would be used for agriculture. 

Carid 1 at 600 S. Patterson Ave. is 15.22 acres and could produce 96 lower-income units, 48 moderate-income units and 48 above-moderate-income units.

Carid 2 at 620 S. Patterson Ave. is 15.85 acres and could produce 38 lower-income units, 19 moderate-income units and 19 above-moderate-income units.

Carid 3 at 905 S. Patterson Ave. is 60.83 acres and could produce 195 lower-income units, 98 moderate-income units and 97 above-moderate-income units. 

San Marcos Gardens 1 at 4960 Hollister Ave. is 27.37 acres and could produce 746 above-moderate-income units. San Marcos Gardens 2 at 125 S. San Marcos is 5.7 acres and could produce 228 lower-income units and 50 moderate-income units. 

The Montessori site at 5050 Hollister Ave. is 11.4 acres and could produce 80 lower-income units, 40 moderate-income units and 76 above-moderate-income units. 

Glen Annie at 7380 Cathedral Oaks Road has three parcels for a total of 94.7 acres and could produce 300 lower-income units, 350 moderate-income units and 350 above-moderate-income units. 

St. Vincent’s East, which is 400 feet north of the intersection of Highway 154 and Cathedral Oaks Road, is 15.69 acres and could produce 75 lower-income units. St. Vincent’s West at 4150 Foothill Road has two parcels for a total of 33.37 acres and could produce 100 lower-income units. 

Hope Church at 560 N. La Cumbre Road is 2.95 acres and could produce 25 lower-income units, 13 moderate-income units, and 12 above-moderate-income units. 

Friendship Manor, which is east of 6647 El Colegio Road, is 1.2 acres and could produce 118 lower-income units, 18 moderate-income units and nine above-moderate-income units. 

Van Wingerden 1 at 4098 Via Real in Carpinteria is 15.1 acres and could produce 118 lower-income units, 59 moderate-income units and 59 above-moderate-income units. Van Wingerden 2 at 4711 Foothill Road in Carpinteria is 9.68 acres and could produce 90 lower-income units, 45 moderate-income units and 45 above-moderate-income units. 

The Tatum site at 4750 Hollister Ave. is 23 acres and could produce 110 lower-income units, 27 moderate-income units and 408 above-moderate-income units.

The board also approved the North County sites it discussed at Tuesday’s rezone hearing. The approved sites in the North County could produce 3,555 new housing units.