Controversy is brewing over whether Santa Barbara should give developers incentives to remodel commercial buildings throughout the city or just in the downtown Central Business District.
City planners revealed a draft adaptive re-use ordinance at Thursday’s Planning Commission meeting. The planning commissioners agreed on most of the proposal but disagreed with city staff over the boundaries of the ordinance.
Santa Barbara planners want to encourage developers to build high-density housing downtown because there is ample parking in city lots, it’s close to stores, shops and service jobs, and it would reduce vehicle miles traveled by concentrating people in one area.
But the planning commissioners said the ordinance should apply throughout the city.
“We really want to see the adaptive re-use ordinance apply to every area of the city,” said Commissioner Devon Wardlow. “It would be a huge missed opportunity to not get this right, right now.”
The adaptive re-use ordinance is included in the city’s Housing Element. It offers developers incentives to redevelop commercial buildings and hotels by eliminating some of the items typically required for housing projects. For example, the ordinance eliminates the need for developers to provide additional parking, open space and setbacks, and gives them unlimited density.
The projects, however, would need to have ground-floor, non-residential space, and include 20 percent inclusionary, or below market-rate, housing.
Architect Brian Cearnal said that the ordinance should apply throughout the city and not just in the Central Business District.
“We have a lot of buildings outside the CBD that are perfect for adaptive re-use,” Cearnal said. “It makes no sense in terms of our need to increase our housing supply.”
Cearnal said the best answer to Santa Barbara’s housing crisis is to increase supply. Downtown is one answer, he said, but there’s much more potential.
The Central Business District stretches roughly from Highway 101 to Sola Street, with a small portion stretching to Arrellaga Street. In the other direction, it roughly stretches from Garden Street to De la Vina Street.
Principal Planner Dan Gullett said the Housing Element specifically called out housing in the Central Business District.
“It’s what we have been talking about for years,” Gullett said. “Essentially you have a good mix of jobs and services, there’s grocery stores, there’s things you can get to on foot or bicycle.”
Gullett said the incentives they are giving, “no open space, no parking,” don’t necessarily provide the same benefit in other parts of the city. In areas outside the Central Business District, and fewer parking lots and garages, might start parking in neighborhoods.
“Upper State Street is a pretty car-dependent area and we would expect residents up there to want to have cars, and maybe they are parking in neighborhoods adjacent because there isn’t parking available,” Gullett said.
Planning Commissioner Brian Barnwell praised Gullett and the staff for doing a great job with the draft ordinance, but said all the discussion should come with the words “housing crisis” in big neon lights above it.
He said the city should be incentivizing housing everywhere and that San Roque should not be driving the discussion for what can be done on Milpas and Haley streets.
“We’re missing an opportunity and it’s important, and when I look at other communities they are doing it,” Barnwell said.
Ben Romo, a consultant who has worked with Jason and Kevin Yardi on two downtown housing conversion projects, said the ordinance should also eliminate inclusionary requirements.
“The inclusionary ordinance is a huge hurdle to doing housing downtown,” Romo said. “Downtown housing, doing these conversions downtown — we have done, and we are doing a second one now — doing these conversions downtown is extremely complex. There’s a lot of risk.”
He said some developers also don’t want to agree to making a unit below market.
“There are a lot of property owners who will not accept a 90-year relationship with the government,” Romo said. “The cost of inclusionary units is a deal-killer.”
Romo said there’s a “double whammy” of economic revitalization and providing housing downtown that would boost the city by eliminating housing barriers.
“We need to eliminate every hurdle possible in order to make those projects happen,” Romo said. “It used to be that developers would come in hat-in-hand begging to do development. The tables have turned. The city needs to recognize that. You need housing providers. Our community needs housing providers.”
He and Cearnal agreed that in-lieu fees, where the developer pays the city money to build housing in another location, is the best way to create more housing.
The city staff will take in the planning commission’s feedback and eventually take the ordinance to the full City Council for discussion. No matter what the City Council eventually does, city staff is gearing up for an overall plan to manage parking downtown.
“Parking, period, needs to be managed, whether it’s on streets, parking lots, etc.,” said Jessica Grant, supervising transportation planner.
Grant, quoting data from the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments, said that 5% of people in Santa Barbara don’t own vehicles, and 28% are one-car families, most of them 18- to 34-year-olds.
“Parking equals congestion,” Grant said. “So, if you start to have less parking, the less parking available, that helps with overall goals with the Climate Action Plan to have less congestion for our downtown area.”