Amid a housing crisis and state mandates to build more housing, a new hotel project quietly slipped through the City of Santa Barbara’s planning process without discretionary review.
A 12-suite commercial office building will be replaced by a 30-room hotel that lacks a front desk and receptionist.
The city’s Historic Landmarks Commission reviewed the project three times on the consent agenda in March. Items on the consent agenda are considered routine and aren’t televised, recorded or placed on YouTube. The only discussion was regarding trees and exterior lighting and other exterior changes. The project itself could not be debated.
The hotel rooms will have kitchenettes, new windows and doors. The building will receive new exterior plaster patching and painting; an exterior staircase will be demolished and replaced by a new elevator. There’s also a planned new 998-square-foot mezzanine.
There’s nothing unseemly about the approval. The hotel is allowed in that spot because the area is zoned for hotel use. Since the developer, Arvand Sabetian, did not propose to significantly alter the exterior of the building, or increase the height limit, which he could have done, the application did not trigger the typical rigorous and costly review process.
Instead, the office building with 22 parking spaces soon will be home to a so-called “keyless” hotel without on-site guest management and concierge services typically associated with a motel or hotel.
That has many people who live in the next-door Laguna Cottages upset.
“You only have 22 parking spaces for a 30-room hotel? I am bad at math, but I am not that bad,” said William Nelson, who has lived at the senior Laguna Cottages for six years. “Traffic, parking is already tight in this neighborhood on Garden Street. It is almost impossible some times of the day.”
The proposal has triggered a broader discussion about process, planning and the future of a city that has long struggled to provide enough affordable housing for the workers who support the city’s tourist, restaurant and retail economy. Others are concerned that the hotel would effectively become a short-term vacation rental.
Noozhawk’s calls to the project’s architect, Clay Aurell of AB Design Studio, were not returned.
Should Santa Barbara be allowing hotels to attract more tourists when that same land could be used for potential affordable housing?
“The bigger conversation is, do we actually need more hotels?” Councilman Mike Jordan said. “That, to me, is the bigger discussion. Are we effectively incentivizing rental units to be built rather than hotels?
Jordan’s experience with long-range planning includes his 11 years on the Santa Barbara Planning Commission.
“Should we be doing more to make sure that the choice that meets the developer’s goals is apartments rather than hotels?” Jordan said.
For the hotel project, there was never a staff report for the public to understand and discuss the matter.
Ellen Kokinda, an administrative analyst with the city, said there is no Historic Landmarks Commission staff report for the project because generally consent items with such minor exterior changes do not warrant them.
“It’s customary for us to prepare design review staff reports only for unique or complicated projects,” Kokinda said. “This one, like so many others, did not meet that threshold given the minimal exterior alterations under HLC’s purview.”
She said the project meets all of the standards of the commercial zone, “which allows hotel use by right.”
“The only discretionary review trigger are the minimal exterior changes to the exterior lighting, landscaping, and conversion of exterior staircase to an elevator,” she said.
The situation is similar to two recent high-profile situations in the city.
When Target moved into the former Z Galleria near La Cumbre Plaza in 2018, community members expressed concern that there wasn’t enough parking to accommodate the number of people who would shop at the store. The Z Galleria had been mostly vacant before Target’s lease.
In the most recent example, Chick-fil-A moved into a Burger King spot on State Street. While the project did go before the Architectural Board of Review, the city had no way to halt the restaurant coming in because it was considered a similar business to Burger King. Now, the city is wrestling with how to contain the problem of cars queuing into the street.
Santa Barbara Mayor Randy Rowse acknowledged that the fate of the site is a hotel without concierge services, but he expects that there would be some kind of maintenance staff on site.
“I don’t know what there could be to deny the use at that location,” Rowse said.
He agreed that it could effectively turn into a short-term vacation rental because “that’s why we allow short-term vacation rentals in hotel areas.”
Beebe Longstreet, a longtime community activist who manages the seniors who live at the Laguna Cottages, expressed concerns about the lack of public process.
“If this were permanent housing, I would have less concern, but this unregulated, transient housing that will have a huge impact on my 58 residents,” Longstreet said in a letter to the city. “This should have much more of a public hearing and should not be on consent. Keep in mind that many of my residents are over 80 and not able to engage in this process, but it will impact their lives and those of future residents.”
For resident Nelson, he said his main concerns are traffic, parking, noise and trash. There was also no public process to discuss the actual land use, only the exterior lighting and trees, he said.
“These things seemed to have happened in the dark,” Nelson said. “I was shocked that there was no other review. I could not even look at the plans before the building department.”
He said he also wonders how it will work with no one checking in people.
“If you want to bring your dog, your cat or a sheep, no one cares,” he said.
— Noozhawk staff writer Joshua Molina can be reached at jmolina@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
