A proposed 250-room resort in Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone stalled throughout final week’s metropolis Planning Fee assembly, and the builders behind the challenge have been advised to foot the invoice for a extra in-depth examine into how the resort would affect the town’s housing disaster whereas metropolis employees take a deeper look into whether or not the challenge qualifies for an exemption from environmental overview.
The challenge has been years within the making, with longtime property proprietor Invoice Wright contending that the town agreed for a 250-room resort on the location in its Particular Plan in 1983. Forty years later, the event is struggling to win over metropolis management, particularly within the face of issues over the town’s housing disaster and environmental impacts.
Again in April, the Planning Fee tried to handle these issues, with Commissioner Devon Wardlow suggesting that, as a result of present housing local weather, the event crew think about a housing evaluation or no less than embody worker housing with the challenge.
This time round, the challenge included six reasonably priced housing models, which the builders hoped would mitigate the impacts on the town’s housing inventory. As an alternative, the challenge was blasted by commissioners and through public remark, with the fee finally deciding to proceed the listening to to a later date when metropolis employees had extra info.
The challenge’s developer, Shaun Gilbert, expressed frustration with metropolis employees and stated his crew had finished “years of labor” to get to this stage and to work towards a California Environmental High quality Act (CEQA) exemption, which might enable the challenge to bypass environmental overview.
“That’s the irritating half for us,” Gilbert stated. “We preserve taking place this rabbit gap.”
He stated that he felt that the town was asking an excessive amount of, and that they have been forcing the builders to spend lots of of 1000’s of {dollars} towards a challenge that will not occur. The event crew did their very own housing examine, he stated, which is why they determined to incorporate the six reasonably priced models to reduce the affect on the housing market. Something extra, they contended, may kill the challenge for traders.
“This isn’t an reasonably priced housing growth. We are attempting to do a resort and clear up a number of the belongings you guys requested us to do,” Gilbert stated. “We aren’t going to unravel all the metropolis’s issues with one challenge, proper? We’re not going to make everybody blissful.”
Metropolis Mission Planner Kathleen Kennedy made it clear from the start of the listening to that the town hoped to proceed the merchandise to a later date due to the housing and environmental issues. Metropolis employees, she stated, had “lots of the identical questions” because the commissioners relating to the developer’s housing examine and environmental overview.
“We wish to consider the knowledge additional and get again to you on that,” she stated.
Wardlow, who has been outspoken concerning the want for extra housing within the metropolis, questioned how the builders arrived on the remaining variety of six reasonably priced models: Was it for 10 % of the resort’s projected employees of 60? Was it primarily based on the unique Particular Plan, which referred to as for seven residential models?
When the builders had little rationalization as to how they arrived at that quantity, Wardlow expressed her personal frustration with the applicant’s lack of preparation.
“I hope you all can perceive our aim of creating certain that that is one of the best challenge for our neighborhood,” Wardlow stated. “Similar to you’re pissed off, it’s just a little irritating,” Wardlow stated.
Commissioners additionally questioned the extent of neighborhood outreach that had been finished. Town obtained greater than 25 letters of public remark; all however two of which voiced issues over the resort.
One group opposing a number of large-scale developments within the Funk Zone is the nonprofit Hold the Funk. Brittany Zajic, a consultant of Hold the Funk, spoke on the assembly, saying the group was fashioned a yr in the past to “begin holding accountability to the inflow of developments coming into the Funk Zone trying to maximize income by capitalizing on the neighborhood they return no profit to.”
Whereas builders of the resort have met with the group privately, she stated, they haven’t but proved that they’re keen to work with the neighborhood.
“The proposed challenge is huge, and thus may have huge implications for the Funk Zone,” Hold the Funk wrote in an announcement to the Impartial following the assembly. “Group profit should be prioritized. As of but, the builders haven’t fulfilled the requirement of bringing neighborhood worth to this challenge.”
In a 6-1 choice, the fee voted to proceed the challenge to a later date, and really useful that the applicant both pay for a housing examine organized by the town or organize an impartial examine of their very own.
Earlier than the challenge returns, metropolis employees and the town legal professional’s workplace will look into whether or not the positioning’s present standing qualifies for a CEQA exemption or whether or not it requires additional environmental overview.
