On Feb. 15, 2023, it all changes.

The County of Santa Barbara has admitted that it won’t make the state-mandated deadline to update its Housing Element. That means developers will have the legal right to build projects with affordable units making up 20% without discretionary review, in a process known as “use-by-right.”

“The county’s review of the project cannot require a conditional use permit, or any other discretionary review, and it’s also not subject to the California Environmental Quality Act,” county project planner Jessica Steele said.

An understaffed department, a set of new, hefty requirements by the State of California, and a grueling outreach process have all contributed to Santa Barbara County missing its Housing Element deadline.

The county recently released a list of sites, many of which were agriculture, that could be rezoned for housing. The state requires the county to update its Housing Element every eight years and find sites that could accommodate new housing.

The state requires that Santa Barbara County planners find land, or rezone it, to build up to 5,664 new housing units between 2023 and 2031. Of the total number of units, 4,142 must be on the South Coast and 1,522 units in the North County.

In an interview with Noozhawk, Steele explained how the county got to this point.

Even though it started its examination of potential housing sites about a year ago, the department is understaffed, and the situation is only going to get worse.

Steele’s co-manager on the Housing Element Project, Selena Evilsizor Whitney, left her job at the county this past week. Dan Klemman, deputy director of long-range planning for the county, has announced his departure effective March 31.

“We have had some turnover since June of 2021 since we started working on the Housing Element,” Steele said. “It’s actually been pretty rare that the long-range planning division is fully staffed. It takes a long time to hire people, and we have problems with retention. We have struggled with certain staff vacancies in the past and will continue to struggle with it in the future.”

Also slowing down the process was the county’s analysis of the sites.

In previous Housing Element updates, cities and counties only had to show the state that they had identified potential sites for housing. However, Gov. Gavin Newsom has beefed up his efforts to require entities to build affordable housing. Now, cities and counties must seriously examine sites and make sure that proposals are near jobs and public transit.

The county also is required to distribute the units proportionally in the South County and the North County, a new mandate, rather than just one overall number.

The county’s housing numbers are also 10 times higher, from about 600 to nearly 6,000 this cycle.

“Most jurisdictions are seeing a massive spike in their numbers,” Steele said. “Those are all really big challenges in terms of collecting data and writing the chapters of the Housing Element.”

The biggest challenge, she said, was preparing the sites inventory. She noted that hundreds of agencies throughout California also will miss deadlines.

County planners first tried to accommodate the Regional Housing Needs Assessment number on sites currently zoned for housing, but discovered that was not possible, Steele said.

So, they targeted agriculture sites, meeting with developers to get buy-in to their proposals. All of the sites listed on the county’s interactive tool, the green sites, have been approved by the property owner to allow for a rezoning. Those sites include several spots in the Goleta Valley and Carpinteria Valley.

“We do not have enough land zoned sufficiently to accommodate 6,000 units in the next eight years, so for the first time in many planning cycles, we had to identify rezones,” Steele said. “These are not typical rezones for us in that we are going to higher densities than the county has ever seen before.”

For example, some areas will be rezoned at 40 units to the acre. The county also has implemented minimum density requirements of 20 units per acre.

Among the major sites on the table for rezoning include 95 acres where the Glen Annie Golf Club sits that could result in 1,536 new units, 28 acres at the San Marcos Growers 1 site that could result in 821 units and 16 acres at St. Vincent’s that could lead to 175 new units. A Santa Barbara County Juvenile Hall rezone could result in 75 new units. In addition, the county has proposed rezoning the land where the St. Athanasius Church sits, for potentially 400 new units.

“It just naturally happens that that is the most ideal location for a lot of these sites — they have access to water and sewer, they are in the urban area,” Steele said.

She also said that the county met with some developers who told them that didn’t want their property rezoned so those sites didn’t make the public list.

“All the effort that we had to undertake to identify sites for our Housing Element, and in particular the rezoned sites, have taken much longer than expected because we’ve had to do such a thorough analysis,” Steele said.

The county will miss the Feb. 15 deadline. Planners expect the county Board of Supervisors to approve the Housing Element in late summer. At that time, since the county missed the deadline, developers would be able to submit application for housing developments without discretionary review for any of the sites currently zoned for housing. The proposed rezones for the agriculture sites won’t be approved, Steele said, until February 2024.

“It’s not until those two milestones are met that developers could even come in and propose projects on these sites,” Steele said.

She said not to expect new housing developments overnight.

“We do not anticipate seeing ground broken on these sites for probably five years or so, at least, after the Housing Element is adopted and the rezones occur,” Steele said. “That’s just how long it takes sometimes for developers to get their site plans together, all their construction financing, all their ducks in a row.”

Developer Ed St. George said many local agencies won’t meet the deadline to finish their Housing Elements, which is a sign of a major problem.

“The simple fact is none of this would even be an issue if cities and counties like Santa Barbra would just follow their own guidelines, but instead they do everything in their power to block housing. It takes me on average five to seven years to obtain a building permit,” St. George said. “That’s absolute insanity, especially given the severe housing shortage we’re facing.”

Goleta City Councilman Kyle Richards said the county needs to consider the residents of Goleta in its planning process.

“While we are eager to work with the county as a partner in the planning process, we also have a lot of questions regarding the county’s investigation into the rezoning of agricultural parcels, and we look forward to receiving more information that helps us better understand where the county is in its process,” Richards said. “Has the county considered all the alternatives, such as rezoning commercial areas for housing, as more people are working and shopping from home? How can we work together to make sure that all the jurisdictions in the South Coast share the responsibility?

“It is our hope that the county can avoid the upzoning of properties — in particular, agricultural land — in areas adjacent to the city in order to reduce unwanted negative impacts.”