It’s not often that you see the normally well-composed architect Brian Cearnal show public frustration. So when it happens, it’s notable.
Cearnal, the owner and founder of the Cearnal Collective, is representing the Wright Family and their plan to build 250 hotel rooms at 101 Garden St. in Santa Barbara.
At a recent Santa Barbara Planning Commission meeting, Cearnal pushed back against some of the questions about building housing at the site, since a specific plan for the property includes a hotel.
“The things they were asking for were kind of nuts,” Cearnal says on the latest episode of Santa Barbara Talks with Josh Molina. “They wanted us to give them a report on what the impact of building 250 hotel rooms would have on our housing stock, and that’s serious scientific research.
“You would have to come up with whatever the algorithms are for what those actual impacts are. That was kind of frustrating dealing with that.”
The architect, whose company is also building the new downtown police station, is a major advocate for workforce housing, but the hotel project at 101 Garden St. was already given support by a previous Planning Commission in 2019.
Cearnal offers a fuller view of the situation in the podcast, and his architectural vision for the site if he does include some employee housing units.
From there, Cearnal talks about the housing project proposed for La Cumbre Plaza. He is working with Matthew and Jim Taylor on a project that would bring more than 650 units to La Cumbre Plaza fronting State Street.
“First and foremost, I have believed La Cumbre Plaza should be housing for decades,” Cearnal said. “That hole in the ground on State Street at Macy’s is ridiculous. How it even ended up that way I have no idea.”
Cearnal acknowledged the major hangup of the project is the height and whether it can exceed 60 feet. The city charter states that any building’s taller than 60 feet must receive approval from the voters. The original proposal indicated a height as tall as 88 feet.
State bonus density laws and the city charter are in conflict.
“A lot of minds smarter than me believe state law trumps the city charter, and that would have to be fought, apparently, in court,” Cearnal said.
Cearnal said he expects the building to be more than six stories tall, but not anything close to 80 feet.
Joshua Molina is journalist who currently writes for Noozhawk and teaches journalism at Santa Barbara City College and Cal State University, Northridge. He formerly covered politics and land use for the San Jose Mercury News. Santa Barbara Talks is an independently owned podcast where Molina looks to bring together voices from all perspectives to discuss and provide solutions to the challenges related to housing, education, transportation and other community issues. Subscribe to his podcast here and consider a contribution here.