The Santa Barbara Historic Landmarks Commission wants State Street parklets smaller and gone altogether everywhere else in the El Pueblo Viejo District.

The panel voted unanimously 8-0 on Wednesday to slash the parklets down to minimal conditions. Business owners must remove all roofs and anything that hangs overhead, but could keep small, low vertical structures.

The parklets would need to be removed entirely everywhere else in the El Pueblo Viejo District, according to the commission, and returned to conditions before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I think of these parklets not as parklets because that’s a misnomer; they are structures in the street,” commission member Robert Ooley said. “It seems to me the day for those has come and gone.”

Ooley said his opinion is that the city should revert back to the conditions before the pandemic.

“Maybe I’ve got 25 good years left, and I am pessimistic that anything related to a master plan will come to fruition before I am dead,” Ooley said. “It just takes too long in this city to get things done.”

The City Council will consider the HLC’s recommendation and is scheduled to vote on the fate of the parklets at a meeting Tuesday.

The HLC never had the option to review the outdoor dining structures after Rob Dayton, the city’s then parking and transportation planner, pushed to close State Street to vehicles and allow outdoor dining for restaurants.

Closing downtown’s main drag to vehicles had long been a goal of alternative-transportation advocates who worked for the city and those in the community.

Using the pandemic as the reason to move quickly, the city bypassed all of the typical design approval steps, including going to the Historic Landmarks Commission, which reviews projects in the city’s El Pueblo Viejo District. 

The inconsistent design, however, irked many of the members who wondered out loud why there are still parklets downtown even though the pandemic is over.

Separate from the parklet discussion, the city is engaged in a colossal State Street Master Plan exploration. The city paid a consultant, MIG, about $800,000 to come up with designs for the long term. The proposals blew up at a meeting in May at the Faulkner Gallery, with community members colliding over how bikes, cars, outdoor dining, trolley service and people should all interact on the street.

That project could take another seven years and, as of now, there’s no clear way to pay for any of the changes, which could involve leveling off the street and eliminating curbs.

The HLC is trying to figure out what State Street should look like between now and when, or if, the master plan is completed.

“Once you figure out the cost, and how it’s funded, and how the little old ladies on outer State Street or in the Riviera or wherever are going to pony up the dollars for this, it may not happen,” Commissioner Ed Lenvik said. “We have to deal with the structures today, as opposed to waiting for seven years or eight years or whatever.”

Commissioner Cass Ensberg said the situation is “extremely complicated,” but that the city needs to take action now to correct the problems on State Street. The outcome of the State Street Master Plan is uncertain, she said.

“You have every opinion known to man,” Ensberg said. “Everyone has a different opinion. So I feel we have to make a clear decision about the situation right now.”