The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors approved an Environmental Justice Element on Tuesday that identifies disadvantaged communities and proposes how the county can better address their needs.
Santa Barbara County has seven communities that qualify as disadvantaged, including Cuyama, New Cuyama, Ventucopa, Sisquoc, Casmalia, Los Alamos and Isla Vista.
Now that the proposal has been approved by the board, the Environmental Justice Element will be added to the county’s comprehensive plan, which is the long-term goal for how to develop the county.
The Environmental Justice Element outlines goals, policies and objectives that will be used to benefit disadvantaged communities throughout the county.
Alex Tuttle, deputy director of Planning & Development, explained that the Environmental Justice Element was developed because of legislation passed in 2016.
The legislation, AB 1000, requires counties to identify disadvantaged communities in their jurisdiction and potential health risks or obstacles to civic engagement. The county is then required to outline policies and objectives to address the needs of those communities.
“They include reducing health risks by reducing pollution exposure and improving air quality, promoting access to public facilities, healthy foods, safe and sanitary homes, and physical activity,” Tuttle said, “and promoting civic engagement in the public decision-making process.”
Garey was on the list of communities in the Environmental Justice Element, but the supervisors removed it from the classification because the median income is higher than the state criteria as of 2024.
The board also changed the boundaries to include the residential areas of Sisquoc and exclude the rural portions. County staff determined that only the residential areas fit the state standard of disadvantaged.
Some indicators that can qualify a community as disadvantaged include physical health issues, pollution or a lack of housing.
“Really, it’s about identifying what the needs of the individual communities are,” Tuttle said, “and how can the county help support and address those needs.”
A community is economically disadvantaged if the median household income is below 80% of the state’s median income. The 2020 statewide median household income in California was $78,672, according to a county report.
The county also studies whether a low-income community is disproportionately affected by pollution or environmental hazards.
Communities are rated based on local exposures, environmental effects, sensitive populations and socioeconomic factors, which are then combined to create a total score for the community.
A higher number indicates that the area faces a heavier burden compared with other areas in the state.
The county report on its Environmental Justice Element states that a score of 75% or higher means the community has a population that is more vulnerable to “asthma, cardiovascular disease, low birth weight, education, housing burden, linguistic isolation, poverty and unemployment.”
Tuttle said the county already offers services to residents, but the Environmental Justice Element helps identify gaps and where services need to be enhanced, and that the board’s approval should not be viewed as the end of the process.
“It’s really sort of the next phase,” Tuttle said, “because implementation of the various objectives and action items will be key and will necessarily involve and require ongoing coordination and outreach with the different environmental justice communities as the county implements the policies and actions and objectives of the document.”