Developer Peter Lewis says that the city of the Santa Barbara should focus on increasing inventory over affordability if it wants to solve the housing crisis.

Lewis said if Santa Barbara wants affordable housing that it should build it on its own property because expecting private developers to fix the housing crisis is unrealistic.

“It is very, very challenging to make sense of redevelopment downtown,” Lewis says in the latest episode of Santa Barbara Talks with Josh Molina.

Lewis in the conversation explains the challenges developers face in building housing, and puts much of the blame on the city of Santa Barbara’s housing policies, particularly downtown.

“Any big building on a small lot that is currently office, and/or retail, say it’s retail on the ground floor and office above it, is not a candidate for conversion because the city doesn’t allow the density to convert it to housing,” Lewis said.

Listen to Lewis explain the situation in the 5-minute clip below. To watch the full interview, click here.

Lewis is currently building a 78-unit housing project on property he owns behind the Staples building on the 400 block of State Street. Lewis said one of the reasons he can build a housing project downtown is because it’s on a parking lot, and that he doesn’t have to knock a building down.

A building loses millions of dollars in value the second it is leveled, and the developer then looks to make up for that loss, he said. Unless the city is willing to allow a developer to build taller, to allow more units, it’s a financial disincentive to build, Lewis said. On top of that, he said, the city’s 10% inclusionary requirement further discourages developers.

“If somebody has a commercial building, and they want to do a conversion, it should be automatically encouraged to put as many housing units as possible in that structure,” Lewis said. “But instead, the city discourages it because it doesn’t give you the density and then it requires a certain component of it to be affordable.”

Joshua Molina is journalist who currently writes for Noozhawk and teaches journalism at Santa Barbara City College. He formerly covered City Hall 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.