Santa Barbara Pitches Design Standards to Balance State Housing Demands With Community’s Charm | Local News

It’s a start.

The city is developing Objective Design and Development Standards to bring developers more certainty in the process, while also protecting Santa Barbara’s quality of life and character.

“It’s a very dense document,” said Planning Commissioner Brian Barnwell. “I can’t imagine writing it. I am a writer, and this looks like the Pietà to me,” he said referring to the Michelangelo marble sculpture of Jesus and Mary. “I don’t know how in the world you got the thing done.”

City planners have worked since 2021 to develop clear design standards for developers and architects, who often say that the city’s review process is unpredictable and harsh. The plan includes development standards for five zones throughout the city. Those areas include four architectural styles.

Complicating matters is Housing Accountability Act, which prevents denying or reducing density for housing projects that comply with objective criteria. Specifically, Senate Bill 330 prohibits cities from enforcing subjective standards and Senate Bill 35 streamlines ministerial approval of housing projects.

The 200-page document offers design rules for apartments and commercial buildings that provide housing. The state laws were intended to encourage developers to build more housing and reduce the power that local governments have in deciding their size, bulk and scale.

Santa Barbara has traditionally had an extremely engaged community that fights to preserve the city’s unique charm, and guard against what they see as rampant growth. But the state legislature is trying to chip away at subjective review and remove more barriers to development, citing a statewide affordable housing crisis that is exacerbated in coastal cities.

“Local officials and review boards working with the local design community are best equipped to make decisions about local development,” said Dennis Doordan, a member of the city’s Historic Landmarks Commission. “Unfortunately, Sacramento does not agree. The state has passed a series of laws that heavily encroach on the discretionary power of local authority.”

The city’s Planning Commission discussed the Objective Design and Development Standards (ODDS) at last Thursday’s meeting and gave mostly positive feedback. They agreed that the standards should not be too strict as they relate to creating affordable housing, an issue raised by some community members.

Others said that they don’t want to see “contemporary” architecture on the Eastside and Westside, out of concerns that it would hurt the design character of the city.

“There’s some contemporary I like, but most of it when I move around the community, it jars me, it just doesn’t fit in Santa Barbara, the tradition we have established here,” said commissioner Sheila Lodge.

Affordable Housing

Christine Pierron, an architect and partner with the Cearnal Collective, raised concerns about one of the design standards, which requires courtyards to face the street.

She said that the proposed 100% affordable housing project at 915 E. Montecito Street, the Parma School site, could not get built if these design standards were in place.

“We designed the project in a courtyard style with the courtyard purposefully located internal to the site and facing the residential neighborhood,” Pierron said. “It was designed internal to the site to create a protected space for the children living here to play and to create the adjacency to the new community room.”

The project, in partnership with the Santa Barbara Unified School District, proposes 30 affordable units.

“Encouraging the development of capital A affordable housing has been identified as a city priority, unfortunately these ODDS, as currently configured, do not aid us in meeting that priority,” Pierron said. “Fortunately, much about these ODDS are thoughtful and useful, but they are not yet ready for approval if we want them to help, not hinder, affordable housing in Santa Barbara.”

The goal of the ODDS, the city says, is to:

• Increase predictability and confidence in the city review process with consistent
  expectations for desirable results.
• Promote a livable city by supporting diverse housing types that engage the streetscape to create a vibrant and walkable community.
• Respect the context of Santa Barbara’s existing built and natural environment with buildings and design that reflect the city’s vision of exemplary architecture.
• Create a visual language to better communicate local standards with photographs,
  illustrations, maps, and tables in a catalog of agreed-upon designs.

Commissioner Devon Wardlow urged the city to do what it can to reach out to the development community to increase the chances of building affordable housing.

“Obviously, we really want to see that affordable projects can use this,” Wardlow said.

“Affordable housing projects are given generous latitude from the state including waivers of any local development standards,” Dan Gullet, principal planner for the city, told Noozhawk. “ODDS are a good way forward for Santa Barbara to facilitate more housing while maintaining the city’s character and the quality of our neighborhoods.”

He said the ODDs will need adjustments, but the document is the best option for the Santa Barbara community.

Commissioner Donald Deluccio said it’s not possible to offer a perfect document, but it is strong enough to get the ball rolling.

“Obviously we are going to see if people use it, and that’s where we really are going to be able to see if we can improve on it,” Deluccio said. “We can have a meeting with developers, but there’s always going to be things that are going to come up.”

The Planning Commission continued the issue to the Aug. 29 meeting.