Santa Barbara voters have a chance to change how the city manages leases on city-owned property. 

Voters will see Measure A2026 on their ballot, asking if the city should amend the charter, allowing the city to enter into leases for more than 50 years, which is the current limit. 

If approved, the city could enter leases for as long as 99 years and could make changes to leases of city-owned property that are longer than five years without having to go through an ordinance process. 

The Santa Barbara City Council approved adding the measure to the ballot back in February. 

City Administrator Kelly McAdoo said if approved, the measure would give the city more flexibility on how it uses city property.

“If we wanted to develop a city-owned property for housing, for example, not having a limit on the lease term would allow us more flexibility to negotiate with a private developer or the Housing Authority in order to make the project financially pencil out,” McAdoo said.

She explained that the City Council decided to pursue this measure as they consider redeveloping city parking lots for housing, which is what the county of Santa Barbara is doing with the current probation building site.

“Right now, because of this 50-year lease limit, we’ve heard from the development community that that just wouldn’t make a development like that feasible for us,” McAdoo said. 

Voters can read more about the measure, and the city attorney’s impartial analysis, here.

Santa Barbara residents will see the measure on their ballot for the June 2 primary election.