A Los Angeles-based housing researcher has some advice for Santa Barbara: Don’t be like Los Angeles.

Shane Phillips, a housing researcher who runs the Randall Lewis Housing Initiative at UCLA, was the keynote speaker at the 2024 Santa Barbara Housing Conference hosted by the Coastal Housing Coalition.

The event was held Thursday at the Carrillo Recreation Center at 100 E. Carrillo St.

“I really, really love California,” Phillips said. “I love Los Angeles, but we have failed and are failing on housing in particular. We’re imposing a level of hardship on millions of households that should make us feel ashamed at some level.”

The conference invited members of the real estate market, local officials and activists to discuss the state of housing in Santa Barbara.

Phillips said Los Angeles has become a cautionary symbol of what happens when cities do not build housing. He said Los Angeles’ failure has motivated other cities across the country to get ahead of housing.  

One of the issues Phillips highlighted was local resistance to change and fear of people moving in. An example of this is residents who try to protect the character of their city or neighborhood by keeping it the same.

He compared this mindset to a child who hugs their pet too tightly and starts to suffocate it.

“We made the mistake of believing that we could build a great place and freeze it in time and that no one else could ever want to be a part of that thing that we had built,” Phillips said.

People are moving out of Santa Barbara, he added.

The consequence of that is those people are not supplying the city with revenue through business or taxes. Other aspects of the town suffer as well, such as public transit.

Phillips ended his speech by saying that a lack of housing is a sign that a city is a good place to live, and people want to be there. He encouraged the audience to embrace new people and create opportunities for future generations.  

Craig Minus, executive director of the Central Coast Coalition, said he appreciated a lot of the ideas shared in Phillips’ speech. He said the goal of inviting someone like Phillips is to introduce the audience to someone who thinks outside of the box.

He noted specifically the idea of supply, stability and subsidy as a stool that supports a healthy housing market.

“I think his concepts were applicable for sure, and I think it’s really important that in the community the decision-makers think through all three of those categories,” Minus said.

He said maintaining a city’s character and identity can be a complicated topic. He understands the desire to avoid radical change but also said that allowing people to live where they work improves their quality of life.

“We need to ensure that our workforce can live here,” he said. “Our firefighters can service our area and our teachers can live in the communities that they teach in. That’s important.”

One of the panels looked at the future of housing heading into 2025 and what investors and builders should expect on national and state levels.

The panel featured Michael Gunning, the chief strategy officer for Lighthouse Public Affairs, and Steven Stenzler, the policy adviser for Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, a Santa Barbara-based law firm.

The panel was hosted by Mack Carlson, an associate from the same law firm.

In their panel, the two guests discussed working with legislators on the state level to streamline building codes, what the challenges are to changing codes, and the state’s goal of pushing cities to build more housing.

Regarding the state’s goal of building more housing, Stenzler said he is seeing smaller cities and rural areas begin to respond by passing initiatives that work better for them. One of the complaints from those areas is that the laws being passed in Sacramento are tailored for bigger cities and not for other parts of the state.

“If people from the Central Coast, the Central Valley or North Coast don’t show up in the legislature and ask for their voices to be heard, L.A. and San Francisco will steamroll with their policies. So, it is important to raise issues and show up,” Stenzler said.

Despite the issues presented during the event, Minus says he believes cities across the Central Coast are working hard to address housing. He noted that Santa Barbara was the first city in the region to address the issue.

He said Carpinteria and Goleta also have worked hard to add more housing.

“I do want to commend all those jurisdictions because I think everyone’s trying to work on it,” Minus said.