No housing, no hotel.

The Santa Barbara Planning Commission gave little support this week to a proposed 250-room hotel at 101 Garden St. because it did not include housing.

“What is clear is that there is no specific benefit to the community, to the residents, to the people who really live here, and that’s of grave concern to me,” Planning Commissioner Devon Wardlow said. “I have real concerns about this project.”

The Wright family has proposed merging six lots to build 250 hotel rooms, along with a library, a bar, a lounge, a 208-square-foot market, a media salon, meeting rooms, a living room, a breakfast area, outdoor seating areas with a spa, a courtyard with a pool and a spa, a fitness room, and a 7,500-square-foot roof deck.

The project also includes 267 vehicle parking spaces, 46 bicycle parking spaces and eight bicycle rental parking spaces for guests.

The project has been in the works since at least 2008, when the Wright family proposed 91 residential condominiums, of which 20 would be affordable, but they withdrew that project because they discovered it would not be profitable.

Then, in 2019, a new hotel project went before the Planning Commission and received mostly favorable comments during a concept review.

The city approved a Cabrillo Plaza Specific Plan in 1983, which allowed for both hotel and housing uses.

The commissioners, however, stressed that things have changed.

“In 2019, the world was a different place,” Wardlow said. “Things are very different. So the idea that in 2019, the Planning Commission sat here and said this use was OK, I think that after COVID, given the massive housing crisis that we are in, we are in a different place today.”

Sean Gilbert, representing the developer, said the plan was to build a hotel and that reducing units and adding housing could be problematic.

“If we were to walk away from this as a 250-key hotel, even if you came to us and said we want a hotel, but we want 200 hotel rooms and 50 affordable housing, I can tell you the deal will probably fall apart,” Gilbert said.

The project’s architect, Brian Cearnal of the Cearnal Collective, displayed a rare moment of public frustration with the commissioners over their lack of support for the hotel project.

“If an applicant can’t rely on a specific plan, then what the hell are we asking specific plans for?” said Cearnal, one of Santa Barbara’s most prominent architects.

He noted that the Wright family donated land so that Garden Street could extend from Yanonali Street to the Cabrillo Boulevard, a contribution that in today’s dollars would equate to $10.8 million.

Cearnal was offended by the suggestion that the developers do a “housing analysis” to see how 250 hotels impact the housing crisis in Santa Barbara.

“I don’t know how we do a housing analysis,” Cearnal said. “How the heck do I determine what 250 hotel rooms, what that impact is on the housing stock of Santa Barbara? You tell me. Who’s going to do that, and how long do you think that is going to take, and how much do you think that is going to cost?”

Cearnal said that with the instability of banks, it isn’t even clear whether Gilbert can get financing for the project right now. Delays would only worsen the situation.

Gilbert said “the uncertainty would kill this deal.”

Wardlow and other commissioners pushed Gilbert to consider, at a minimum, employee housing, open up the proposed market to the community. Later in the meeting, he indicated employee housing was worth considering, as well as donating to a housing fund.

Rather than an outright denial, the commissioners voted 6-0 to “continue” the project, to give the developers time to study employee housing, do outreach to the neighborhood, and work with existing tenants on the site. Cearnal indicated that any employee housing would have to go on a third story, which would increase the height of the building about 45 feet.

The developers plan to return to the commission in about 60 days.

Planning Commissioner Sheila Lodge said she was “conflicted” about the situation.

“There’s no way it’s not going to have an adverse effect on the housing situation,” Lodge said. “

But she added that the specific plan allows for a hotel and the understanding in the early 1980s was that the Wright family could build a hotel at the site.

“It doesn’t seem quite right to say at this point, ‘Sorry,'” Lodge said.