Walk down memory lane

By LORETTA REDD

On Thanksgiving morning, before the sun peeked into our city, a friend and I walked along State Street downtown, reflecting on gratitude, and simply enjoying the dark empty corridor lined with the white light shooting stars of seasonal decorations. Even with the magical ambiance, it was impossible to ignore the impact of the downward spiral of our economy, as store after store displayed signs ‘for lease’ or ‘going out of business.’

Santa Barbara is a town protected from the early waves of our nation’s economic impact; housing prices have fallen more moderately, bankruptcies and foreclosures remain mostly out of sight.  But this is a tsunami recession and the victims are beginning to show up oon our shores; likely to be much worse should the holiday buying season be a disappointment for local retailers.

Building owners or leasing companies have options. They could choose to lower some of the astronomical rents along State Street and the downtown corridor, enabling a return of unique shops and local businesses. Or, they could ignore the empty storefronts and continue soliciting mega corporations whose international coffers have turned most major cities into commercial Stepford Wives of enterprise.

Consistent with the caravan of business closures is the early wave of recently completed mixed use, condo-topped Prada stores and trendy ethnic restaurants along Chapala Street without either customers or homeowners. Even if every ‘affordable’ unit created as blackmail for builders in our ‘urban corridor’ has a happy family occupying its space, I doubt they have many market-rate mortgage holders with whom to visit in the courtyard.

This is what happens when government attempts to determine the look and feel of a city in defiance of its citizens.

We are reaping the result of our not-so-visionary, workforce housing cheerleaders in the planning department, and our over-built but built ‘green’ Planning Commission, and a Council who mostly rubber stamps departmental decrees.

This week an aggregious power grab-- designed, drawn and delivered by Councilman Roger Horton-- was set in motion to do an end run around the voting citizens of Santa Barbara. Known as a fiscal watchdog for reasons I will never understand, Mr. Horton declared the need to “reconsider” his previous approval of a ballot measure that would restrain building heights in el Pueblo Viejo (downtown) district.

With a straight face he outlined a ludicrously novel and deliciously unnecessary way to waste staff time and City money in the name of affordability and sustainability. In the same breath, he basically declared that the 11,500 Santa Barbara voters who had signed the petition placing the height limitation on the 2009 ballot were not sufficiently competent to know what they were agreeing to, and therefore a competing declaration should be placed alongside it.

Let me be among the first to remind the Council that the reason the citizens went to the time and expense to qualify the building height limitation in the first place, is because they felt ignored by the process of appeal. These citizens were troubled by the trend of monolithic structures being built or proposed downtown, with their Barbie sized setbacks and view obliterating mass. Long time residents like Bill Mahon had taken the time to object to the Planning Commission and then to City Hall, but when repeatedly ignored and summarily dismissed, they took matters into their own hands.

Members of our City Council, including Mr. Horton, Das Williams, Grant House and Helene Schneider, were apparently distressed by the possibility of the people who live in Santa Barbara having a voice in what the city looks like, since most didn’t have the awareness of an architect, the connections of the Chamber, or the deep pockets of a developer. The lowering of building heights from sixty to forty-five feet was apparently such a “draconian measure” that an alternative initiative must now be drawn up to be placed on the ballot.   

The competing initiative would reduce heights to a maximum of forty-five feet as well, so that’s apparently not a problem. But it would allow for “…the possible exception of projects designated a community priority by council, or for affordable or rental units.” Aha. We need the Council to decide for us what is a community priority; and those building heights would simply be ignored in order to house that inimitable workforce. We all know it is cheaper to house 50 people under one roof in a five story building, than build cottages, bungalows, and courtyard style dwellings…but that’s just “not Santa Barbara.”

“What’s the harm of having a choice?” the Council foresome of defiance asked, ignoring the cost in dollars, staff time and EIR approval necessary to draft such a competing statement.

As the adage goes, the devil is in the details.

The real purpose of the additional ‘choice’ on the ballot is to confuse the voters and to water down the voting block so that NEITHER of the restrictions are able to pass. Objecting mostly to the utter waste of attorney, planning and administrative time along with the cost of a modified EIR, were the reasonable conservators of our coffers and defenders of the public will, Mayor Blum and Councilman Dale Francisco. Kudos to them for remembering who city council is supposed to represent.

Alas, the fix was in, and their objections were negated by a 2-4 majority.  Iya Falcone missed the vote, but should be asked ‘on record,’ if she believes she’s ready to join the Horton Hoo.

Rather than ask you to simply accept my assessment, I invite you to go to make use of today’s incredible technology, and watch this council meeting for yourself. This item is first on the agenda, so it’s easy to access and easy to stay awake. Go to www.santabarbaraca.gov and click on City Meetings and Video Online; then select the November 25 meeting; sit back and form your own opinion.

I suppose if it’s possible for some small body of special interests to persuade Mr. Horton and others to reverse the vote they’d already taken; maybe there are sufficient numbers of outraged voters (I can think of 11,500) to call or contact the Council with your own persuasive messages.

In the meanwhile, I may need to take the Council for an early morning walk down State Street for a reality check. Perhaps they’d come back ready to tackle some cost savings measures, rather than competing vote chicanery. After all, we won’t need to build multistory, high density downtown housing when there’s no ‘work’ for the ‘force’ to do.

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Right on, Redd! : 12/2/2008

"Horton Hoo"! I love it, assuming it's as in HooHaHa, as in what a joke of a council majority. But it is serious: some of the architects have pledged to raise $200,000 to defeat the citizens' efforts. (If that happens, it will be interesting to hear if the developers' friends then complain about that the way they've complained about a few, three?, local folks getting low wage hourly pay for signature gathering.) Actually, only termed out, lame duck Horton flip-flopped and changed his vote, pressured, apparently; the other three (House/Williams/Schneider) wanted the politicians' measure the prior week. Iya Falcone said then she opposed both ballot measures, ignoring that Santa Barbara has a history of citizen involvement and activism, including ballot measures. In fact, that citizen caring and activism is central to Santa Barbara's character. The devil indeed is in the details. The citizens ballot initiative is straightforward: 40' in the historic downtown core, preserving that. 45' elsewhere. Five feet, the difference with the Council choice, may not seem like much, but the Council's measure puts the choice of what's "community priority" and can go to 60 feet right in the politicians' hands. If voters want the Council to decide, then they will vote with the Horton Hoo; if not, they'll choose the peoples' choice. It's going to be an interesting election for Mayor and at least two Council members. Every candidate will be asked to go on record and will have to state which of the three they prefer: Council, Citizens', or the status quo which has brought us Chapala One, et al. PS: no one should believe the scare tactics: any presently existing tall building, Arlington, Court House, etc. that should fall because of a disaster can be rebuilt exactly according to its plans. Just like the houses in the Tea Fire!

SB resident

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