The Housing Authority of the City of Santa Barbara is planning a major redevelopment at the Presidio Springs Senior Community that will take the site from 122 apartments to 327 apartments for low-income seniors.
Redevelopment at 721 Laguna St. will take place over multiple years through several phases, with some residents having to be temporarily relocated during each phase. Construction isn’t expected to begin until July 2027.
The project is in the early stages. The Housing Authority hosted a virtual community meeting on Wednesday to share early concepts for the senior community.
Rob Fredericks, executive director of the Housing Authority, said there is a great need for housing for seniors living on a fixed income.
“The latest detailed figures we have on the homeless count, 33% of homeless adults were over the age of 55 in Santa Barbara County,” Fredericks said during the meeting. “The need is really great, and we need much more housing for these individuals and families.”
Fredericks also shared that 55% of seniors renting are cost burdened, meaning they’re spending more than 30% of their income on housing.
Dale Fathe-Aazam, deputy executive director of the Housing Authority, said they expect the redevelopment to be a 10-year project.
“Presidio Springs is actually our largest property, and while it’s beautiful, it’s relatively not dense. It’s sparsely laid out, so it represents an opportunity to really improve it,” Fathe-Aazam said. “The buildings that are there are getting older, and some of the systems are starting to fail, so it does need that replacement.”
Christine Pierron with the Cearnal Collective, an architectural team working with the Housing Authority on the project, said the first phase will include demolishing a 10-unit building and replacing it with a 40-unit building at the corner of Garden and Ortega streets.
Pierron said residents will be temporarily relocated elsewhere within Presidio Springs or into another Housing Authority facility.
In the second phase, 30 more apartments will be redeveloped, and residents will temporarily move into the new 40-unit building, along with the 10 original tenants. That process will repeat throughout each phase.
“What we’re trying to do is, is build as much as we can, but at the same time reduce the impacts on the existing residents, so that we can move them once, hopefully on site, and then move them to their new apartment, and then create new housing opportunities for other seniors on our waitlist,” Fredericks said.
The second phase is expected to bring 63 new units, the third phase will redevelop 24 units into 113 apartments, the fourth phase will redevelop 20 units into 52 units and add a community room, and the fifth phase will bring 59 units.
In total, there will be 327 apartments on site, adding 205 apartments to the existing 122 apartments.
New parking also will be added during each phase of construction, with more than 200 parking spaces to be added for residents, employees and visitors.
Fredericks said that right now, Presidio Springs isn’t taking advantage of today’s density standards.
“If we can create another beautiful community that’s a nice place to live, with double the units that are currently there, boy, would that be a great net positive to the community,” Fredericks said.
The property was developed in 1977, and Fredericks said the aging infrastructure has become expensive to maintain.
“It’s lived a good, useful life, but the infrastructure is also aging and gets more expensive to maintain,” Fredericks said. “This type of redevelopment will set the property on its course for another 60 years into the future to meet the needs of the community.”