Santa Barbara’s controversial high-density rental housing program is facing pushback from some members of the City Council and the community.

The city’s three-member ordinance committee voted 3-0 on Tuesday to move forward a series of recomendations to change the program, and at least one member  is expressing concerns about the focus of the entire program. 

“I don’t believe the AUD incentive program is addressing the needs it originally intended,” said Councilwoman Kristen Sneddon. “I believe the whole program needs to be reworked.”

The city’s average unit-sized density incentive program was approved in 2013, and allows developers to stack multiple apartments on smaller pieces of land in exchange for building rental units.

The problem is that the new apartments are not affordable, and are too small for working, middle-class families, who are unable to buy a home in Santa Barbara.

The units have no price restrictions, so property owners are renting the units out at the what the market will bear, which in Santa Barbara is out of reach for many people.

The first project build under the program, the Marc at 3885 State St., advertises one-bedroom apartments for $3,200 a month and two-bedroom units for up to $3,700.

Developers and some city officials have attempted to frame a narrative that the rental apartments will house millennials and young professionals, who don’t drive cars, walk or ride the bus to their jobs and downtown nightlife, and don’t need a lot of yard or open space in the apartment projects that they live in.

The city’s ordinance committee on Tuesday backed changes to the program that would require developers to provide two off-street parking spaces for rental units with three or more bedrooms. Right now, the city ordinance only requires one off-street parking space regardless of how many bedrooms or number of people who live in the apartment.

Neighborhood activists have complained that the projects will overwhelm neighborhoods because many residents will park on public streets since there are few places for them to park off-street.

The change, however, would not apply in the city’s downtown business district because the city is trying to encourage developers to building housing downtown. 

Other proposed changes include a provision that prevents the AUD units from being converted into hotels or vacation rentals. And, in an effort to prevent property owners from converting mobile home parks to high-density expensive rental apartments, the city has proposed not relaxing parking requirements for mobile homes.

In an effort to ease neighborhood parking strain, Councilman Oscar Gutierrez suggested that the city require developers to only rent to people without cars. 

Dan Gullett, supervising transportation planner, said such a requirement doesn’t make a lot of sense.

“A private landlord is looking for a return on investment,” Gullett said, adding that it would be very difficult for the city to monitor whether someone in a privately owned development owns a car. 

 Assistant City Attorney Scott Vincent was more blunt.

“This program was started as an incentive for private developers, without public incentive, to develop new housing units,” Vincent said. “A private developer who is mandated to not allow anyone who owns a car to be a tenant or owner of the unit severely limits their potential market for who might be a tenant or who might buy these units.

“I am not sure you are going to find any developer willing to construct a project without being able to consider all potential occupants as part of their market.”

Gutierrez offered a different view. 

“I respectfully disagree,” Gutierrez said. “I feel that although it might be a concern that if we get stricter with the parking requirement, and possibly looking at the alternatives, maybe regulating whether people own cars, it might turn away some developers, but I am pretty sure that people are going to be still be willing to want to build here even if that is a requirement.”

Councilman Randy Rowse disagreed with Gutierrez. He said most people need cars to get to work because in the downtown area, the jobs don’t pay high enough to support the market rates of the rentals.

“The problem is we are missing those jobs,” Rowse said. ‘”We do a lot of hospitality, retail and government. That is what we do, so the idea that you are going to automatically consider the central business district where everybody is going to work, especially given the fact that you have market force rents, people are actually going to need automobiles to get to Goleta or Carpinteria or wherever they happen to work.”

Other community members who spoke on Tuesday voiced opposition to the direction of the program. 

“I think the whole AUD program, though it sounds like it supposedly solves our so-called housing crisis, I think it is actually creating a bigger crisis,” said resident Brian Miller. “The rental unts are still too expensive for those who are on average income.

“The units are not being required to supply adequate, sufficient parking, overwhelm the already crowded streets with more cars, resulting in it becoming more and more undesirable for anyone really wanting to visit our downtown core.”

He said the AUD program is transforming Santa Barbara from a low-density expensive city, into a less-attractive, high-density expensive city

“I rcommend the whole AUD program be abolished or seriously revised to reflect the reality of our limited natural resources, and reflect on the true nature of market forces that ultimately dictate how much property is actually valued,” Miller said. 

— Noozhawk staff writer Joshua Molina can be reached at jmolina@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.