Measure B caught in political turmoil
A year ago Measure B sprouted from a grassroots movement. More than 11,000 people signed a petition to lower maximum building heights from 60 to 40 feet in the downtown El Pueblo Viejo area and 45 feet in other parts of the city.
But today, Measure B has become tangled in confusion and turned into a pawn in a larger political battle over power and control in the Santa Barbara mayoral and city council election.
With expensive dueling TV and print mailer ads and unprecedented outside money coming in from Texas developer Randall Van Wolfswinkel, Measure B has erupted into the most controversial city ballot measure in decades.
The people who led the Measure B effort more than a year ago, now find themselves unwittingly aligned with Van Wolfswinkel and his political action committee, Preserve Our Santa Barbara, which is backing a slate of candidates for mayor and city council.
“When we did this a year ago it wasn’t really a political issue,” said Bill Mahan, a former longtime city planning commissioner and one of the founders of Save El Pueblo Viejo. “This whole thing turned with the political campaign and once all the candidates got involved.”
The Measure B fight has turned friends into enemies and political enemies into allies.
Is it a measure to stop tall buildings? Or is it a covert effort to eliminate future affordable and workforce housing in Santa Barbara?
Under the Preserve Our Santa Barbara slogan, Van Wolfswinkel has dumped more than $250,000 into the Measure B campaign and in support of mayoral candidate Dale Francisco and City Council candidates Michael Self, Frank Hotchkiss and Catherine McCammon.
All of these candidates are loud and vocal in their support of Measure B and have attempted to tie their candidacies to the initiative.
They point to the large new buildings on Chapala Street - Paseo Chapala and Chapala One - as reasons for why the building heights should be lowered by amending the city charter. Supporters contend that without limits written into the charter Santa Barbara’s downtown will just get bigger and bigger and lose its small-town charm.
Mahan said he believes that Santa Barbara is experiencing a political sea change.
“There are a lot of new, wealthy conservatives who don’t want to see Santa Barbara change,” Mahan said.
But Measure B opponents tell a different story.
They claim that supporters of Measure B are using scare tactics. They say Measure B’s passage will ultimately hurt Santa Barbara and drive development away from the downtown and into the neighborhoods and onto open space.
“Anyway you cut it, it cuts off one third of the potential development for future workforce housing,” said Measure B opponent Dave Davis, the longtime Santa Barbara Community Development Director and current executive director of the Community Environmental Council. “If you take away one-third of the supply you drive up the price of land even higher and it puts pressure on moving density into the neighborhoods and outside of downtown. Not a good idea.”
Davis and others believe that Cottage Health System would not be able to complete its hospital modernization if Measure B passes because some of the buildings left to be built are taller than 40 feet.
He also points to the irony that Mahan, as a planning commissioner, approved some of the projects in question.
“Don’t forget that Bill Mahan voted for both Paseo Chapala and Chapala One,” Davis said. “Now they are held up at what shouldn’t be done. But rather than learning and crafting an ordinance to deal with it they went essentially to wipe out one third of the potential for future housing within the downtown area, which will drive up the price of land by decreasing the supply of workforce housing and moving density into the neighborhoods.”
The Santa Barbara County Democratic Party has also come out in opposition to the measure.
“Measure B is unnecessary, harmful, and a giant distraction from the issues that matter to middle- and working-class people in Santa Barbara,” said Daraka Larimore-Hall, chairman of the Democratic Party. “A small group of people who don't live downtown, who are mostly retired homeowners by the way, got a large number of signatures for the measure by scaring people into thinking that high-rises were in store for Santa Barbara.
“For decades, our current protections have worked fine. This is another example of how the priorities of the city's elites are completely skewed.”
Measure B opponents also contend that if Measure B passes, historic buildings over 40 feet, such as the Arlington and the Granada and Lobero theaters could not be rebuilt, because they wouldn’t comply with the new height limits.
The current city ordinance states that buildings that would be destroyed by a natural disaster such as an earthquake could be rebuilt if no more than 75 percent of the building is destroyed. To fix that loophole, just this week, Mayor Marty Blum and mayoral candidate Dale Francisco said they would team up to introduce an ordinance that would allow commercial buildings to be rebuilt even if they were 100 percent destroyed.
Regardless, Mahan says that as a practical matter, if such historic buildings were destroyed, the City Council would certainly find a way to vote to rebuild the buildings.
“It’s a joke for the no Measure B side to say you can’t rebuild buildings,” said Mahan, suggesting that the Cottage Hospital issue was a blatant lie.
Davis and other Measure B opponents, however, say that Measure B is so poorly written that it leaves open wide interpretation, a sign that voters should reject the measure.
With voters currently casting ballots by mail, and Election Day on Nov. 3, both sides are in a mad scramble to make their case to voters.
Mayor Marty Blum supports Measure B, but thinks it is unfortunate that Preserve Our Santa Barbara and some of the candidates have attempted to use Measure B for political gain.
“This measure will hopefully win or lose on its merits,” she said. “It shouldn’t be tied to any slate of candidates.”
Comment on this article
measure B : 10/22/2009
Guess we know where the daily sound stands on the matter. One third of all future work force housing will be in that extra one story on buildings in the middle of down town. Riiiiight. A covert effort to stop affordable housing? Signed by 11,000 elite wealthy conservative commandos. Interesting to see the system at work to defeat this measure. Most of the Players are against it, people who make their living in this arena. While most supporters are from the Man on the street category. The Independent also seems to be quite opposed in their stories as well.
jahlion
Daraka needs to shut the F up and think before he talks : 10/22/2009
I really wish Daraka, as the purported leader of the Santa Barbra County Democratic Party, would stop insulting so many people in the name of the Democratic Party and his vision of social correctness. Every couple of weeks it is stupid statement like the quotes here. Plenty of retired people who reside outside of downtown are new and old Democrats and represent how Obama, Capps, Nava, and even Das Williams got elected. The Democratic majority coalition keeps getting hurt by these insulting and destructive comments by Daraka, who thinks that the only Democrats who matter are twenty somethings who live downtown.
Driving me to Decline To State
Apologists and liars : 10/22/2009
Let's be straight. The city of Santa Barbara is not Goleta nor Santa Maria. Like many beautiful cities world-wide it has the right and duty to protect the ambiance of its core even (especially) in the face or rising populations and pressures. Measure B takes this duty and acts on it. The desire of some to convert downtown SB into a urban core with rat maze like structures in the name of providing affordable housing is equivalent to those who would put fish farms in ocean preserves to provide food. The need to provide housing can be handled in other less sensitive areas and we can save at least a small part of the beautiful world that California once was. Look at the opposition--it's developers and businesses who want to make money--pure and simple. The fact that the Democratic Party can be in alliance with these phonies is another reason the system is broken. Vote yes on B.
RHS
Daraka and consistency : 10/22/2009
if Daraka is so opposed to Measure B why did "his" Dem Committee endorse two of the most vocal Measure B proponents, DIanne Channing and Bendy White
nonsensical
CEC being mislead : 10/22/2009
It's ironic that Dick Davis is supposed to be an environmentalist for CEC and wants more development in a town that's over-developed already. His assertion that Measure B " puts pressure on moving density into the neighborhoods and outside of downtown." is flawed. When the glass is full you can't put more development in it. unless your gonna build highrises in neighborhoods. CEC needs to re-evaluate their mission if their truly behind over-development in Santa Barbara. It certainly will create more pollution and traffic.
native
: 10/22/2009
HAS ANYBODY THOUGHT OF THE OUTRAGOUS COST OF THIS PROPOSAL. CITY HALL WILL HAVE TO HIRE TEN MORE BUILDING INSPECTORS AND BUY A BUNCH A TAPE MEASURES.... AND TODAY IS ALL CAPS DAY! SO GET WITH THE PROGAM! ESPECIALLY YOU DAILY SOUND IF I READ ONE MORE REGURTITATED THOUGHT MY HEAD MIGHT EXPLODE
BOYCOTT BOY
Now declining to state : 10/22/2009
Once again the Democratic party in this town is drifting away from the middle class and worker class. It has now trashed environmental concepts and true sustainability in order to provide high denisty and fast growth. My party in this town has abandoned me just as the Republican Party abandoned my moderate Republican friends. Yes on B
SB Citizen
No on B : 10/23/2009
Measure B is another set of regulations in an already far too regulated industry and it disrespects personal property rights. Santa Barbara is going to grow, the only question is how we grow. Do you want all of the new housing to be placed into the neigbhorhoods and open spaces? If you look at the rest of the story, Plan Santa Barbara encourages building additional units, guest houses and granny flats in the MODA's (Mobile Oriented Development Areas) which are any area within walking distance to a bus stop. Think of that. Increasing population, need for more housing, no ability to build downtown, encouragement to build in the neighborhoods near bus stations, what do you think will happen? Come on people, we've had a 60 foot height limit for decades and it worked for the most part. Bulky buildings are ugly and unnecessary but restricting height and tying the hands of planners and builders is not the right answer. Measure B will not accomplish what everyone supporting it wants which is to keep away any new citizens in Santa Barbara, it will just move them into new developments in the neighborhoods.
Reasonable person
Measure B : 10/23/2009
I live within sight of some of the recent Chapala developments, I'm not retired, and I support measure B. I'm also a liberal democrat, and I am puzzled to find that my local party, which used to be the party of slow growth, has now become the party of the developers--at least when it comes to the downtown. Surely there are ways to limit sprawl without essentially concentrating it in the downtown area.
downtown democrat for measure B
What sensless Lunacy! : 10/25/2009
It would seem that people would spend their time worrying about something of more importance than if a building is too high! Total Californian Nonsense. No wonder the "Country" of California is totally in another reality. Get with it people, Progress is Progress.. Are you idiots? Today u worry about stunting your area's economy. Tomorrow a new regeime moves in and build skycrapesr. This is nothing but an example of the Have NOTS now wanting anyone else having social or economic grownth..
Raptor
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