Santa Barbara’s enchantment is clear for anybody, not to mention for the hundreds of scholars and residents right here searching for high-quality schooling and a laid-back beachy way of life. However the picturesque way of life Santa Barbara is understood for is more and more unaffordable and inaccessible because of one other of the realities the South Coast is understood for — the crushing housing disaster. Growing enrollment and stagnant housing alternatives have induced many college students to show to off-campus housing the place they face exorbitant costs for overcrowded and poorly managed items. Even worse, some college students are pressured to stay in vehicles or campers. This has made UC Santa Barbara’s failure to handle the housing disaster globally notorious.
Whereas UCSB bears a lot of the duty for not growing the housing provide for brand spanking new college students, that doesn’t let surrounding cities off the hook. Santa Barbara, Goleta, and different cities on the South Coast should additionally deal with their half in fixing the native housing scarcity. One state invoice, Senate Invoice 423 by Senator Scott Wiener of San Francisco, will assist them just do that.
About 61 p.c of UCSB college students stay off campus, lots of them unfold throughout Isla Vista, Goleta, and Santa Barbara. College students assist increase the native economic system and create stronger, extra various communities, however because of many years of predominantly single-family, exclusionary zoning, college students more and more discover themselves competing with neighbors for housing. Or they’re priced out completely. Group opposition to denser housing has made it tough for builders to beat the elevated value of constructing close to the coast to be able to construct extra inexpensive, multifamily housing that’s typically match for college kids.
In consequence, Santa Barbara is the fifth costliest metropolis to stay in within the nation.
A church in Berkeley (left) was rebuilt to 37 items (proper) underneath SB 35’s streamlining, which SB 423 will additional enhance. | Courtesy
Along with native opposition, bureaucratic processes and excessive prices delay and sometimes forestall the constructing of multifamily initiatives. Since going into impact in 2018, Senate Invoice 35 has helped cities that aren’t on observe to fulfill their state housing targets overcome these challenges by making it sooner and simpler to construct inexpensive and mixed-income housing initiatives in city infill areas that native governments have already designated for multifamily housing.
By accelerating initiatives that already meet all native zoning and design requirements, SB 35 lowers the price of constructing these houses and brings them to market sooner. That is particularly essential in coastal communities the place the price of constructing is increased, as it could possibly assist encourage extra residence builders to spend money on constructing inexpensive housing initiatives by making them financially possible. It’s been broadly profitable throughout the state.
Already, SB 35 has helped streamline greater than 600 new houses in Santa Barbara County, greater than 400 of them inexpensive to low- and really low-income residents. However for now, these initiatives have been in additional inland cities like Buellton and Santa Ynez. We want new, inexpensive houses in coastal cities like Santa Barbara and Isla Vista, too. That’s why SB 423, this yr’s extension of SB 35, additionally expands the invoice into multifamily, city infill websites in coastal cities that have been beforehand exempted, whereas nonetheless upholding protections for helpful and susceptible coastal areas.
The dearth of latest housing building is a serious contributor to lots of Santa Barbara’s social ills. Residents’ well being is impacted as they’re pressured to stay in unsafe situations — black mould being a typical discovery in lots of flats. College students generally expertise excessive stress within the housing search; many should pay quite a few utility charges simply to be turned down by dozens of leasing firms.
Racial and socioeconomic range additionally suffers, making a campus and neighborhood that’s considerably whiter and richer than different elements of California. Native employees get priced out because of competitors with college students and newcomers, forcing service, agricultural, and schooling employees into inland cities with lengthy, environmentally damaging commutes. This finally compromises the financial, environmental, and social cloth of Santa Barbara, and prevents employees from having fun with the numerous advantages of coastal dwelling.
The housing disaster isn’t just our current, as college students, however our future too. On the finish of our schooling at UC Santa Barbara, whatever the neighborhood and roots we’ve got constructed, the roles we maintain, our potential as future academics, nurses, small enterprise homeowners, and important employees that would serve Santa Barbara, most UCSB college students are pressured to go away the realm as a result of we can’t afford to stay right here.
SB 423 is crucial to making sure that secure, steady, inexpensive housing is usually a actuality for all UCSB college students. UCSB college students are an integral a part of the Santa Barbara neighborhood, and our housing wants usually are not separate from the remainder of town and county. SB 423 is a confirmed device to extend the inexpensive and mixed-income housing our space desperately wants, not only for college students, however for all Santa Barbara County residents.
Zadie Waletzko and Micah Littlepage are college students on the College of California, Santa Barbara.