AnonymousBy Helen Larsen
The state officials in Sacremento have mandated Santa Barbara must use every bit of land possible to accommodate as many people as possible. Those officials have not considered all the angles and repercusions of such a mandate in an area such as Santa Barbara, hemmed in by the Santa Ynez Mtn. range and the Pacific Ocean.
The first and foremost major problem is lack of services, particularly specialty medical services. The wait period for an appt. is 2-4 months!
Doctors are choosing to leave Santa Barbara for less costly environments. One general practioner emphatically stated to me the need to bring attention to this growing problem. He mentioned his disappointment when he sends his patients on to specialists, the patient’s needs cannot be accommodated for a lengthy period of time.
I was also told by many different sources the same is true for veterinarian appts. being extremely difficult due to a long wait time. This is one town that truly loves their pets and angonize when their pets cannot receive medical attention in a timely manner.
Santa Barbara now has more traffic problems, including an increasing number of accidents, quite similar to Los Angeles. Our roads cannot handle the population increase.
I personally believe the residents already living and working here have a right to be protected. As it is now as I speak with my many different friends and acquaintences, their mobility has also been restricted by the fear of venturing out at certain hours simply to avoid the complications associated with too many others vying for doctor or vet appts. and for safe space on the roadways we do have. I have chosen to avoid going out except for the hours between 11 am-2pm, when folks are not in such a rush. BTW, I, as a Class A driver, have never been involved in an accident and don’t plan to be.
Op-Ed’s are written by community members, not representatives of edhat. The views and opinions expressed in Op-Ed articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of edhat. [Do you have an opinion on something local? Share it with us at info@edhat.com.]
I’m confused too: I thought our capitol was spelled Sacramento…
That’s our capital, speaking of spelling.
Right?
No; capital refers to financial resources. Capitol is correct for the center of government.
I can name the capital of any state. Nebraska? Capital N.
Actually….. capital is correct for describing the city, while capitol is used to describe the building.
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/capital-vs-capitol/
Knowing is half the battle….. GI Joe!
Capital: The word “capital” can refer to money, uppercase letters, the death penalty, and capital cities that house a seat of government. Capitol: The word “capitol” always refers to a physical capitol building (such as the US Capitol building) or the area surrounding it (such as Capitol Hill).
7:27am
The worst people in the world are those who tell people who are correct that they are wrong and then “correct” them with incorrect information, being too arrogant to double check before contradicting someone.
The second worst people in the world are those who post their responses in the wrong place and those who take obvious hyperbole literally.
Really? In this world full of mass shootings, child abuse, human trafficking and on and on, you really think that people who post stupid things on the internet are “the worst people in the world”? I wish I lived in your bubble.
As a health care practice owner, I can attest that the problem of getting a healthcare-related appointment is because the practices have to rely on support employees coming from outside the area. This is largely due to the almost complete lack of affordable housing here for potential employees to live here. This is one of the factors trying to be addressed by the creation of more low-cost housing. We need to have those workers live here, where they are employed, not spending three hours on the freeway in gridlock just trying to get home. These commuters exhaust themselves and have little private life for themselves and their families. Instead, we prioritize upper income housing and single-family dwellings, which require even more of the support people because people with money need more servants. But the servants cannot afford the rent here and are forced to commute, polluting the air and wearing their cars out and abusing their families by their absences. We need a whole city with the people who work here being able to live here as well. How can this be done? Well, not by packing everyone into vacant land in west Goleta. The whole community needs to embrace the problem and find a solution. I just know that there are no, that is, none, available support people for my health care practice that actually live in this area. But I will not hire a person who has to spend three exhausting hours on the freeway every day coming from Lompoc, Oxnard. These people are not resting enough to entrust your health to them, or for me to rely on them to do things properly. So, instead of just being a NIMBY, think of a solution: How can we create more low-income housing for Santa Barbara? The city governments cannot act without your support. Get involved and stop whining.
HUMANITARIAN – you are absolutely correct. But, get involved how? Voting only does so much. Instead of mandates with no support, we need funding. We need the state or fed to subsidize low income housing that is truly affordable. There needs to be an end to the incessant greed and that can only be satiated with money from someone other than the renters. We need to build affordable housing that IS affordable or make rent in someway affordable for those we all need to have living in our community. This isn’t Beverly Hills where employees can easily take a bus to work. We are isolated AND expensive. This creates this island we have here that requires employees (and professionals) to commute unreasonably long hours. We need to find the money to make this happen.
@ SACJON- 20%. (TWENTY PERCENT) of all housing units in Santa Barbara are SUBSIDIZED… What number would you like to see? 30%…? 50%…? Maybe we could built Soviet Union style cracker jack boxes that house 1000 families in one building containing 1 bedroom units.
Coastwatch–yes. We should build several thousand small apartment/rental/shelter housing (Soviet Union style or not). A lot of the people who live in doorways, alleys, along freeways, under bridges and such would pretty gladly take such shelter. The idea that esthetics is more important than ethics is sick. We know, however, that architects can provide very interesting and creative solutions if we allow them to do so.
COAST – Why does percentage matter? We should have housing that is affordable for those whose services we rely on. Only way that is going to happen is if someone pays the developers enough to keep the rent affordable.
As for housing homeless, you don’t get to complain about housing them and at the same time complain about seeing them living outdoors.
COASTWATCH – where did you get the 20% figure? According to the City, “affordable housing that constitutes approximately 10% of the City’s housing stock. ” https://santabarbaraca.gov/services/housing-human-services/affordable-housing
Additionally, “affordable” doesn’t always mean subsidized. So, again, can you please back your claim (in all caps) that 20% of our housing is subsidized? I have a feeling we’ll be waiting indefinitely…..
Links make one credible, but I really don’t care. Yeah, socialism is awful. Just look at how shitty people live in Europe with all that universal health care, housing, free higher education, longer parental leave, etc etc. Just got back and man, those people were BEGGING to be homeless or bankrupt from medical bills. USA USA USA!
There you go… Not hard to find pal.
Got the info from the SBHA. The TOTAL # of Housing units is 39200… 20% of that is 7900…
@ SACJON- Just within The City of Santa Barbara there are 7,158 housing units that are subsidized… That is NOT including Noleta/Goleta , Carp, Santa Maria and Lompoc- So there you go… 20% of all housing in SB is subsidized, not to mention how many 100’s of MILLIONS of dollars go to EBT / Wefare recipients… Welcome to socialism.
Get ready as well to have more boats, RVs, work trucks, camper trailers parked on the street in front of your house. The largest RV storage in the entire area has been designated for low-income housing because it has been designated “under-utilized”, despite being completely full of exactly 196 stored units that will have to be relocated in an area where there is NO OTHER AVAILABLE STORAGE!Only one other slot in Carpinteria. Will people store these vehicles in Santa Maria or Santa Paula? Probably not! So be prepared for a big boat on a trailer or a 40-foot RV in front of your house soon. And will the low-income housing provide vehicle storage for these things? Absolutely not! They will not even provide adequate parking for the people living there. So get ready, it’s coming!
If local planning commissions deny contractors and developers permits to build expensive single-family residences and only give permits to those who will build 100% affordable housing, then the contractors and developers will figure it out. They are not going to move out of the area or go into another line of business. Everyone who wants us to have a whole city with all workers living here can step up and get involved. First, no more moderate or higher income developments. Only low-income developments. Second, people moving here need to already be working here. If this is followed, everything else will work out by itself.
This issue doesn’t affect just Santa Barbara (although it doesn’t affect Moneycito), it is happening to Cities and jurisdictions ALL OVER THE STATE… Our infrastructure can not handle this politically forced, mandated and arbitrary building. From water resources, waste water processing, roads, traffic congestion and a myraid of issues, our State Representatives and Governor are completely CLUELESS as to the impacts on quality of life. Their knee jerk-feel good laws are having devistating affects, and many are leaving the State.
I don’t generally have a problem so far with local health care. If you have an issue that presents as more urgent, they accomodate you. If you need a yearly physical, you should be fine them scheduling it out a year. The issue comes up when you have something even slightly difficult to treat as you need to plan for a routine of drives to LA area hospitals.
While the first sentence is a bit hyperbolic, I agree with the sentiment and concern. Yes, I’m a liberal, but I think this mandate is not the way to build affordable housing. That said, even if we were somehow able to stem the tide of incoming new residents (ie, transplants), we still face an overburdened health care system. We need to not only reduce the number of new residents, we need to make it more affordable for professionals of all types to be able to live and work here. Police, teachers, even doctors are struggling to make it here. We need those people.
I’m a little confused. We don’t need more housing per the title of the essay, Doctors need housing, only drive between 11-2. Did I get all of that?
I don’t find the amount of traffic that bad in SB. If drivers paid attention, then we could all get from point A to B without feeling like we’re in a Demolition Derby. Drivers everywhere are distracted and addicted to looking at their phones which poses definite risks.
Regarding housing, it’s an age old argument that those who have housing/property believe everything is fine and to not build any more now that they have theirs. The OP’s arguments don’t really hold up. How can we get more veterinarians and health care workers, if there isn’t more housing? Vets and docs get old and retire too.
Goleta has been doing a really good job at creating thousands of new housing units. The more that Goleta builds, the better it is for Santa Barbara as it takes pressure off from the already overcrowded downtown/Mesa/Riviera areas. The City of SB is more than happy to have workers who live in other places like Goleta, Lompoc, Ventura, Santa Maria, and so on. Our highways and roads are being expanded to accommodate the increase in commuter traffic, as well as for commercial trucking. It is taking a while to build the infrastructure, but once it is in place, everyone in SB will benefit. Imagine if there were no plans to exapand the 101 to three lanes…..it’d be a real mess!!! I encourage anyone and everyone to support additional new housing (and hotels) for all of the people who want to live in our area….it’s simply getting waaaaay to crowded here, especially in the downtown area.
There’s an interesting article in the Wash Po about which states produce more doctors/artist/writers: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/18/states-most-artists-writers/
I am confused by the argument here. If we need to attract medical care who would like to live here I guess we need more housing. But I agree with the point that politicians have sold out to those who want growth. These are generally businesses who want more cheap labor and more customers and land owners who want to make bigger bucks off the price of real estate. But generally speaking it seems to me that CA will be much better if we can reduce the resident population by a lot (maybe two million or more). Since we are only “losing” about 140K a year to other states this is not going to happen soon. If the author wants less traffic and cheaper housing she should advocate for policies that discourage people from coming to CA and encourage them to live in less comfortable states like AZ, FL, TX! And, if the author thinks it is difficult to get medical care here she should look at the access to the most basic medical services are in poorer communities. SB is almost certainly among the best served places in California when it comes to medical, hospital, dental and related fields.
Right on! Not in my backyard. We need an ordinance allowing only healthy people in new housing. As for the traffic, its really light between 11 PM and 2 AM.
What if the people who have to commute here from Lompoc and Ventura moved elsewhere and refused to come do the jobs they are currently doing? While they are not the cause of the problem, they do go along with the broken system and allow it to be perpetuated. I wonder if one day we will find we have no support staff, and changes will be made.
Here’s the story of Santa Barbara real estate: Someone buys a rental income property (or inherits it) and owns it for 30-40 years never updating or maintaining it, but collecting rent. Tenants trash the place, and it’s a basic tear down by the time they leave or die. The owner then sells as-is condition and still makes a mint. New owner has to basically raze the building, because updating it to meet current building codes is more expensive than demolition and building new. New construction is expensive, and takes 30+ years to pay off mortgage. And the cycle starts again.
As others have stated in the past on this much-debated topic, “affordable housing” in a place as desirable and wealthy as Santa Barbara, is a myth. There’s only so much space, and market forces, supply and demand, will always win out. Add in the issue of how do you decide who deserves the limited supply (if there is one even) of cheap housing – the landscaper, the painter, the first responder, the nurse, the doctor…who?
Giving up and doing nothing isn’t the answer. Subsidies and incentives can help with the market forces that are keeping even 250 sq ft studios unaffordable to most local workers. Just looked on Craigslist and a decent, yet small 285 sp ft studio downtown is going for $2700 per month. A dinky converted garage “studio” about the same size is a great bargain for only $1850 a month. This is absurd. For these to be “affordable,” they should be 1/3 total monthly income. That means, to afford the low end studio, you must make $66,6000 a year. That is ridiculous. Someone making that kind of money (eg, executive assistants, teachers, medical support, etc) living in a converted garage by themselves? What if they have kids? For the nicer studio, again STUDIO of less than 300 sp ft, you must make over 97K a year to be able to afford it. Who makes almost 3 figures and lives (happily) alone in a tiny guest house?
No, we can’t give up. Believe it or not, even the upper class will start to suffer once their employees, servants, even doctors, leave the area. A community needs all to be sustainable. It’s time to do something.
Maybe grandfather the existing affordable housing units?
What would happen to housing prices if there were no affordable housing rules? For example, if housing costs get too high, then many people who work here would be forced to leave. If that happened, we would have fewer doctors, dentists, restaurant workers, hotel workers, plumbers, electricians, law enforcement and so on. I assume that would cause a collapse of our quality of life resulting in fewer people wanting to buy a home here or rent here. Wouldn’t the housing market react with lower housing prices? Then a new balance would reached for awhile? I agree that the other option is to build more affordable housing but at some point, doesn’t it change the character of Santa Barbara? Tough choices.
All properties and rentals are affordable. They are rented/ purchased by those who have the means or figure out a way to pay the rent/mortgage. If costs to live here tomorrow doubled, there still would be plenty of folks who could afford to. Don’t blame those who can afford to live here. Get over it because it is what it is and stop the blame game and asking for subsidies.
The definition of affordable housing: housing on which the occupant is paying no more than 30 percent of gross income for housing costs.
Median family income: $81,000 (2020). Translated to housing costs per month (30%/12 months) = $2025 per month.
Average rent on a 2BR apartment in Goleta: $3200. Santa Barbara: $4200. Aka, not affordable for the median family, and therefore not the bottom half of families by income. (An income of $152k would be required in order for a $3800 apartment to be “affordable”.)
Words have meaning. There’s a generally accepted definition of affordable housing. You can’t make up your own.
BABY – easy to say when you’ve got yours. Hey, I have mine too. It’s great and I am thankful I made some sound financial decisions, but, as a human, I empathize with those who are struggling.
OK, so let’s just keep SB housing for those who can afford it. Now, explain how you see life in a city with no cops, no teachers, no waiters, no landscapers, no park rangers, no maintenance workers, no paramedics, not as many doctors, no medical assistants, no deputy DAs, no public defenders, no food service workers, no janitors, no one between the ages of 20 and 35 (except for daddy’s kids and actors), etc etc etc and still a TON of homeless (remember, you banished the cops). Sounds fun, huh?
Stop being selfish and asking people who don’t live here to drive 3 hours a day from their homes to come here and serve you.
Sac, I can explain that for you – it’s called FANTASY LAND. There’s your answer.
Just don’t. We don’t need your bs in here again.
Imagine the laughter of someone in 1980. We will be arguing on a wireless phone, texting complete strangers, thinking our opinion matters.
GOML: Your opinion doesn’t matter.
Vote responsibly for a change.
That’s what happens when you take away all industry and have other countries provide our needs. We don’t want to pollute, so send it to Mexico or China or wherever and it’s like it’s not happening! Science… We crush everything on tourism, while not only welcoming growth but having it mandated on us. Why are you people questioning? You all state you’re college grads and smarter than everyone. I assume you mean the labor force that runs this city and is mostly Hispanic. Racist much?
OGSB – so, bringing industry to SB will drive down the prices so people who work here can live here? I’m confused.
The South Coast needs a better balance of housing. The City of Santa Barbara’s latest Annual Progress report shows that only 12 moderate income units were built in the last 8 years. The goal was 804. The goal increases to 1441 for the next 8 years. Failure to achieve the goal (assessed annually) results in State overrides of local zoning (e.g SB35, SB330, SB9, and others to come). Proposal for the City: revise its bonus density program to provide a 60% bonus for rental projects which are 100% restructed to moderate income residents. Don’t restrict the rent; just the income of residents.
Humanitarian 2003 hits the nail on the head. We need workforce housing. We need the funding from the State to help developers build workforce housing. This one size fits all approach by Newsom and his buddy Weiner will be not work. Lemon and Hart, our local reps in Sacramento, must step up and lead the way so housing funding will be funneled into communities to do more mixed use housing/adapting empty commercial space into mixed use/work force housing. Shocked to see
Limon taking ‘no vote’ positions on some of this. We did not elect her to not vote. We elected her because she is a capable legislator who should be looking for solutions for our area, not SF. The State took away redevelopment funding because it was being misused. But that was then; this is now. Recreate redevelopment agencies and make sure the money goes where needed……..to the local communities to build workforce housing. The current Housing Element mandates need to be tossed and Sacramento needs to get its act together, even if it means rocking the Dem. boat up there.
Wages must be adequate to support housing locally. Employers must support their employees. Taxpayers need not subsidize housing for underpaid employees.
Yes we need AFFORDABLE housing, and yes the government is ruining our state. https://ourneighborhoodvoices.com/calmatters-our-neighborhood-voices-housing/?fbclid=IwAR1f73BhSppzhg7Mdj6FMCCCUHbhYtiqYIdgJaoYjnoXf8RYvNh7lZGOZuo
As a doctor who is now employed by UCSB, I’ll offer my comments. For 14 years I ran a solo private practice in Santa Barbara. I always wanted a partner , but new physicians either moved away to train in specialties that were not primary care, or wanted a practice that could help them pay off their medical school loans, and not take insurance. I was fortunate enough that in my first few years of practice elsewhere I was able to pay off the bulk of my loans and save enough along with my husband to place a down payment on our first home in 1999, when prices were just starting to rise. I started out with a more lucrative job as a hospitalist, with no overhead but working 60- 80 hours a week with a salary that was comfortable but not excessive. Then I had kids and those hours were just not feasible, anymore. I opened a private practice to have flexibility and soon enough realized that the overhead cost were overwhelming. Rents for medical offices are commercial, and between Cottage and retired physicians owning the space around Cottage the rents are high. Employees are expensive due to the cost of living and again, a commuting employee is difficult to employ because of they have a family emergency, weather or traffic delays that impacts the practice. Medical supplies cost a surprising amount and everyone assumes that doctors are making so much money they have charge top dollar for licenses, continuing medical education (required), staff privileges, credential of fees, etc. And the insurance companies reimburse Santa Barbara doctors as if we live in Fresno, not SB County. The UCLA doctors are reimbursed at LA rates, because UCLA is able to negotiate better fees than solo doctors can ( more than twice what SB doctors get). Doctors are not paid “overtime” for any middle of the night work, and back then were not paid for phone calls or messages to their patients, which would take about 2 hours of my day. Childcare costs were high, again due to the cost of living in SB. After about 5 years I chose to not “participate” as a provider for most insurance plans, and set my fees at a reasonable rate, allowing insurance to pay part of my fees, and the parent the remaining portion. Costs continued to increase, I was not saving anything for retirement, and not much for my children’s education. And they attended the local public school. Finally, at 14 years my choices were clear- concierge ( annual fee, at least $3,000 if not more) medicine or finding employment that might allow me to practice as a doctor, not as a businessperson. I chose to be employed by UCSB. I am actually paid less, but I have a pension plan -and my hours are regular hours. My mental health is much better. I still am struggling to pay for on e child’s college education, and the next one starts in a year, so they will need to consider loans even though they will be going to state schools. My partner had about the median income for an educated person in SB. If I am struggling, without a house I own and no debt, what does that say for all the people who don’t have that?
One of the arguments for not building densely in particular areas is that it is not “equitable”. That is an interesting question. What does that mean? We don’t have data on where people work in the county. Goleta had been adding hotels and businesses to their city, and that does attract people. UCSB and Cottage are the largest employers in the area. There are other, large tech businesses in the area. Where are the remote workers living? Adding hotels adds employees that make low wages and have the most difficulty affording housing here- can we “afford” to be expanding our hospitality industry? If we really looked at these answers, and focused our efforts on infrastructure employees, We could have an “equitable” conversation about what Santa Barabra County needs and where we need housing.
I agree with the need for workers and the housing for them. But the only way Affordable or even most affordable housing can be built here with the high land costs is with grants and other funding to entities such as Santa Barbara’s Housing Authority. They do not pay for themselves, do not “pencil out” without that funding. …the “free market” is only for a small number of people who can afford it and, generally, that does not include most workers, even higher paid health care workers, let alone young teachers or the lowest paid workers that keep our city alive.
Demanding and legislating no more moderate or high income housing can only work if there is not a willing seller wanting to go along with a greedy architect/developer! The volunteer planning commission can not accomplish that, but a city council could pass laws that would then get challenged. But At least, we would know which of our representatives represent present Santa Barbarans.
Our Senator Limon has consistently not voted on fellow legislator Weiner shove-it—in-their-faces housing bills. She apparently values getting along with her “friend” more than she does those Santa Barbarans she “represents”. We need to watch closely how our new assembly member Smilin’ Gregg Hart votes on SB 423, the worst, so far, of the worst bills.
Our city council values having restaurants dominating our downtown —- but only affluent and relatively affluent can afford to eat there; the workers survive on their tips. Something is very wrong here and most of the council do not give an ubiquitous-in-SB rat’s.… With city districts and most of us recognizing that our “leaders” do not represent us, few vote and so the party goes on. Viva!?
There had been a lot of dense development in the downtown area in the last several years and there is a lot more in the pipeline. Most are million+ dollar condos, many of which will be second homes or vacation rentals, and often with inadequate parking. These do not fix any of our housing problems. We need half-million dollar condos for local residents, not million dollar ones that sit empty half the year. I realize that the economics of building these kinds of affordable units is almost impossible in SB without both carrots and sticks coming from the city. However, since the state has enacted laws that virtually strip a municipality’s ability to regulate development, I do not see Santa Barbara building enough of the kinds of developments we really need anytime soon. This is on top of the lack of infrastructure needed to support new developments (thanks again, Sacramento), which is another expensive problem entirely!
We the people can mandate what is needed because we are the driving force, not the government, which is sworn to represent us but is not doing so. We can use our influence to force the creation of low-income housing so that we can regain control of our infrastructure. We can mandate that rich people wanting to come here to live compete to buy existing housing and to not allow permits to build more. We can develop vacant commercial property into low-cost housing and mixed use commercial rentals that also cost less. We have this power and just need to implement it. We cannot allow the over-development of a few small sites that crowd people together and cannot even provide enough parking for residents. The entire community must contribute to the solution. We don’t need any more “oldtown Goletas” where people are packed like sardines and there is never any open parking, while other areas of single-family and affluent residents are completely exonerated from any solution. We just need to use our power as individuals, remembering that government is “of the people, by the people, and for the people”. Speak up and make waves!
HUMAN – “We have this power and just need to implement it.” – I fully agree, but how? I feel like we’ve all been voting against development, yet it keeps happening. Chain ourselves to bulldozers? I’m game lol!
Elections have consequences
Exactly. If Gavin’s your guy, shut up. All the rest of us didn’t vote for that clown.
Basic- By calling our governor a clown I guess you’re implying that a talk radio host nobody’s heard of (Elder) was a better choice? Or how about the failed executive of a failed tech company? (Whitman). The CA GOP could win elections with pro-business moderates like Schwarzenegger was but instead they choose to be culture war fringe idiots. I mean do these kooks even have any beliefs beyond following a reality TV host into the dumpster of history? Lol
Hey, don’t pick on Basic. His doctorate in pseudology requires that he spouts nonsense.
11:39 – Now that make sense.
Exactly. If the GOP had any backbone at all they would run rational candidates and write off the extremists within their party. But they won’t, because they are a bunch of pussies whose backbones twist with the wind.
Another impact to south coast housing are the schools – UCSB and SBCC (which recruits from all over the world for a city college).
As it seems no one around here actually knows the history of why property and rentals are so expensive in Santa Barbara – its because the Anti Growth voters of Santa Barbara voted for it when they passed Proposition A by a large margin in 1977. The City made it law the following year.
Proposition A shut down all low / medium density apartment building in the city, made all other building permits very difficult to get, and limited the future population of the city to 85k. Which its pretty much stayed around for decades.
Even in the 1980’s the disastrous effect of this on rental and property prices was already apparent in the but the Anti Growth Lobby in SB spent a huge amount of effort (and lawsuits) trying to lock down all water permits in the Goleta Valley. Where the spill over residential development was starting to happen. And with keeping the city water system disconnected from the state system. For the same reasons. And we all know how much that stupidity eventually cost the city taxpayers.
Until the 1960’s property and rental prices in Santa Barbara had its ups and down but everyone from the street cleaners to very richest rarely had problems finding somewhere to live inside city limits at a price that matched there incomes. What has happened to SB since the 1970’s making it so unaffordable is the direct result of Anti Growth politics.
You can change nothing and have a small city that is incredibly expensive to live in. Or you can reverse Prop A (and later additions) and let the city grow to the size it would have been without Prop A. Around 150K metro, 400K urban (currently 200K). Then and only then will housing return to early 1970’s levels of affordability.
But until then, embrace the suck. Because nothing is going to change otherwise. This is very basic economics. Artificially constrain supply (Prop A) when demand stays the change prices go up. Way up. And every attempt at price control (rent control ect) reduces the supply further. So prices go up even more.
Wishing for unicorns never work.
What happened to the affordable 115 unit housing for medical staff , Bella Riviera ? Is it not being used by medical staff? Or like most affordable development after a year or two it is sold and does not maintain affordable status. This never ending circle of developing affordable housing which converts to non affordable in a couple years is driving more unnecessary development. This is not sustainable on natural resources nor is it successful. If it’s built for affordable status it should remain permanent affordable status., that’s the root of the problem.
Cottage Hospital’s New Workforce Housing Reaching Move-In Condition on the Riviera
https://www.noozhawk.com/081912_cottage_hospital_workforce_housing/
People who work here should be able to live here. Rich people from outside SB should have to compete with each other to buy or rent existing housing. Developers should only be given permits to build affordable housing. Tourists who want to visit here should have to compete for existing rooms. Emphasis of city governments should be to serve the needs of the local people first. This would solve a myriad of problems that have been created by governments improperly prioritizing development. We are the people, and we can mandate what is needed by uniting and advocating for what the community needs to be whole and supportive of the local people. Everything else is superlative nonsense that just creates problems for local people.
Well as no one seems to wants to increase supply enough to make any difference why not reduce demand.
Lets see. Move UCSB to somewhere like Bakersfield and that will remove the single biggest strain on local residential property / rental prices for the last 40 years. Actually more like 50 years based on local newspaper stories in the 1970’s. Thats well over 35K removed form the local market. That will reduce unaffordable prices. Guaranteed.
And while we are at it Santa Barbara is no longer the biggest city in the county. Move the county administration and services to Santa Maria. That’s another 5K plus gone from the local market.
Then rental and property prices will come down enough so that people on average incomes can afford it.
But its never going to happen. Is it? Because just like 30 / 40 years ago the people who shout loudest about everything being too expensive are exactly the sort of people who vote against anyone or files lawsuit against all measures that will actually make a real change to the situation.
Don’t believe me? A quick look though old issues of the SB Independent from the 1980’s and 1990’s will show that nothing ever changes. Or any issue in the last 20 years for that matter. The same Anti-Growth arguments. The same magical thinking. Anti-Growth = High rental and property prices. Thats the way the world works.
Not that I care that much. I always could afford SB prices. So I’ve got no skin in the game. But the complainers never change. Decade after decade. Not that it really matters that much in the long term. Eventually mother nature will take care of the problem. Just like she did in 1925.
“Not that I care that much. I always could afford SB prices.” – Slow golf clap for you.
Sorry?
I have no personal financial interest in the question one way or another. And I would gladly forgo any future gain in any personal property prices if it meant the city had a more balanced residential property market. Which it has not since the 1970’s. One way or another.
So we have a bunch of not very bright people by the sound of it making the same sort of fatuous complaints decade in decade out as they try to come up with more and more outlandish reasons why..
either
A) their rentals (and they are usually renters in my experience) should be subsidized by someone else while they refuse point blank to support any pubic policy changes that actually would greatly reduce the cost of accommodation in the city;
or
B) they bough property decades ago when prices were much lower (remember nice houses downtown for under $200K? I do) and they dont want anything to disturbed their very pleasant life. Subsidized by very low property tax courtesy of Prop 13 I might add. By now often inherited from their parents.
As I said nothing really has changed since the 1970’s. What the opponents of Proposition A predicted has come to pass and what the supporters of Proposition A said back then has proved to be just pure fantasy.
What we have had for the last 20 plus years is a huge mismatch between total available residential units supply and demand. Want lower prices then greatly increase supply (build out to 150K+). Or else greatly reduce demand. Get the two biggest sources of demand to move elsewhere. UCSB being by far the worst offender. Building a few “affordable housing units” at huge cost per unit changes nothing. Never did. Never will. Nether will reciting the same old slogans.
Sure living in a city of say 150K would not be the same as a city of 85K. There again I much preferred Lower State Street before Paseo Nuevo was built and it was not dead after 8pm and over run by street people most of the time. But hey, places change. Time moves on. But some people never seem to be able to work than out. Even when finally priced out and forced to move out of the area. Which I have seen happen to so many of the most vocal “Anti-Growth” people and their supporters over the decades.
Anyway. As I said , mother nature will take care of it in her own way one day. Because as you might have noticed Santa Barbara has plenty of faults. Especially just offshore.
“we have a bunch of not very bright people by the sound of it” – oh, no more claps for you.