The battle over the Goleta Community Plan update is heating up as opposing sides intend to take their arguments to the Board of Supervisors hearing Tuesday.
At the center of the debate is the area commonly known as “Noleta,” the unincorporated area east of Patterson Avenue in Goleta that stretches to the western border of Santa Barbara, and its community plan — the master planning document that dictates where future development, if any, in this area would go.
As part of an ongoing effort to update the Goleta Valley’s community plan, the Board of Supervisors will consider a process that essentially would freeze all development in the area as the planning document is updated, a process that could take several years. It’s a notion that slow-growth proponents support, while advocates and builders of workforce and affordable housing see the move as a waste of opportunity to provide much needed low- and moderate-income housing in the area.
The last community plan for this collection of suburban neighborhoods was in 1993; it was rendered obsolete by the city of Goleta’s 2002 incorporation, which took a significant amount of planning area out of Santa Barbara County’s plans. The entire unincorporated zone, which stretches along Goleta’s northern and eastern borders, was also split so that the portion north of Goleta (Zone 1) was placed in the 3rd Supervisorial District, while the portion east of Goleta (Zone 2) is in the 2nd District.
Two projects would continue to be considered, however: a More Mesa biological resource study, and the Cavalletto housing project on the site of the former Noel Christmas Tree Farm.
If the Goleta Community Plan is not updated within three years, according to a staff report, the Board of Supervisors may reconsider its decision.
The time lost and projected increases in building costs are sticking points for housing advocates and builders, who consider this inactive period essentially a moratorium on building.
“These restrictions are going to make housing more expensive to build, and less affordable to the workforce,” said Debbie Cox Bultan, executive director of the Coastal Housing Coalition.
Processing fees and rising costs of construction would make it more difficult for local builders to build homes for the many commuters who drive into the area to work, she said.
“This essentially is a moratorium on affordable housing for up to eight years,” she added.
An alternative to the Community Plan update — estimates for which would cost the cash-strapped county at least $500,000 — would have the five or so development sites in the Goleta Valley undergo individual development studies on the applicants’ dime, pursuant to development, as opposed to a major overhaul of the master planning document for the 2nd District unincorporated area.
But for the those in favor of the Community Plan update, the development freeze makes complete sense.
“The 28,000 people of the Goleta Valley want to be able to plan their community as they see fit, rather than have one man in a 20,000-square-foot mansion in Montecito do it instead,” said Gary Earle, referring to local developer Michael Towbes.
Earle, a community activist opposed to densification, was one of 12 members of the Goleta Visioning Committee that put together a Goleta Valley blueprint to serve as the prelude to the community plan update.
“It’s not just about one or two sites,” Earle said. “(The update) is about the whole area, the roads, the infrastructure. This is about the citizens of the Goleta Valley fighting to protect their community.”
Towbes, Earle suspects, is involved in much of the effort to keep the update from happening, as his company is represented on the board of several local housing advocacy groups that oppose the freeze and The Towbes Group has development interests in the area. Towbes himself is on the board of the Housing Trust Fund of Santa Barbara County, a nonprofit organization that seeks to develop funding to provide housing to low- and moderate-income families.
Also opposed to the development freeze are other community groups like Pueblo, a social justice organization representing low-income residents, and SB CAN, a leader in the progressive community.
“We very much support the process of allowing the community to plan their future, but this moratorium on development could shut the doors on what could be very good plans,” said Debbie Brasket, SB CAN’s executive director.
An emerging plan that could have the Santa Barbara County Housing Authority building affordable units on a lot currently owned by MTD in the Goleta Valley area could come to nothing if there was too long of a delay, she said.
The Board of Supervisors will take up the matter at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday at the board hearing room on the fourth floor of the County Administration Building, 105 E. Anapamu St. Hearings are broadcast live on Cox channel 20, or click here for a live online link.