Where We Live, a look at Re-zoning Santa Barbara County

The cry for affordable housing and a statewide push to find places to put it fuels a fierce conflict raging across Santa Barbara County, pitting homeowners fearful of overcrowding, more traffic and the future of their own home values against planners charged with preparing the region for new construction.

At the core lies a proposal to rezone perhaps dozens of largely vacant residential, commercial and recreational properties - to introduce condos or multistory apartments, perhaps, or increase the number of units allowed per acre.

Officials say fresh approaches are needed to meet future demand. But from Montecito to the Goleta Valley and North County, residents worried about what it all might mean for their immediate surroundings are banding together, meeting weekly, crying foul and threatening lawsuits.

It's a story being written across the state, but rarely as urgently as in this county: Planners focus on preventing sprawl, and how they respond to that imperative leaves residents in the neighborhoods affected feeling the script has already been penned.

"There are so many communities that are upset about this," said Dennis Baker, a spokesman for the more than 2,500 Goleta Valley members of the Hollister Area Neighborhoods Association, or HANA "We are not against affordable housing. We are not against people having homes and finding creative ways to solve the affordable housing issue. But the residents have to be included. It's not a not-in-my-back yard kind of thing. It's, 'Let me be a part of deciding what is in my Backyard."

Authorities have identified more than 40 "housing opportunity sites," places like the San Marcos Growers farmland on Hollister Avenue or parcels clustered in the heart of Vandenberg Village. The effort comes as part of a larger push to update the housing element of the county's general plan, something the state requires be done every five years.

The update is mired in controversy, its pace slowed in recent weeks - jeopardizing more than $3 million in potential state housing grants that could be used to help subsidize affordable homes. Authorities who hope to finalize the rezone plan sometime next winter describe an entrenched, overly worried and inflexible opposition. But on the other side, residents complain about being shut out of a process in which, they say, opinions of the public carry too little weight.

This comes as officials plan for a new series of public workshops on the future of several sites. The first in Vandenberg Village is scheduled for Saturday, to be followed by more in the Goleta Valley and Orcutt

'A NEED, AND A MANDATE'

All of this comes as the California Department of Finance projects the county of 400,000 residents will gain 68,000 newcomers by 2010.

Where can our firefighters, teachers or other middle-income professionals - already struggling to find a home - live? The question has become a mantra for policy shapers in Santa Barbara County, where the median home price last year topped $900,000.

Work-force housing needs like these are driving the rezoning proposal, officials say.

In addition, the state mandates that sites for 6,064 new housing units 3,499 at affordable prices - be found in the unincorporated county for construction through 2008. Another 11,468-7,021 at affordable levels-are slated for the eight cities in the county.

The unincorporated county has more than enough empty urban and rural land zoned Residential to accommodate the required market-rate units. But current zoning cannot accommodate affordable housing in "low" or "very low" household income categories, which at the 2000 Census included workers who earn less than $48,500 a year for a family of four.

"Nobody's interested in destroying character," said Lisa Plowman, deputy director of comprehensive planning at the county Planning and Development Department. "Nobody in the department or county wants to become Los Angeles.

"The county's goal is to keep a vital community," she said. "You have to have all sectors of the community to have a rich quality of life.

"Nine hundred thousand dollars. Who can afford that? That's a huge impact on our community. There are things we can do to adjust that."

Enacted in 1969, the state housing element law requires all California cities and counties to periodically rethink their land-use rules to prove they can accommodate future residents. "Land use is probably one of the most controversial areas of local government," said Cathy Creswell, deputy director of the California Department of Housing and Community Development. "It is not unusual for there to be significant resistance if a community decides to either, at the request of a developer or at its own initiative, rezone land for a different use. Some of that just relates to concern about change and misunderstanding about what density means and what kind of people live in multifamily apartments."

In San Francisco, for example, neighborhood groups have fought to block the city from significant rezones that would increase housing density along traffic lines and in other areas without an environmental impact review. Residents there have complained that municipal planners have sought little public input

Not all Santa Barbara County residents who attended a series of public meetings that officials held in June and July to explain the rezoning proposal thought creating new housing is a bad idea. But the majority, some insulted they were not consulted sooner, complained about neighborhood degradation. Some filled comment cards with fiery phrases such as "Just Say No" and "Where can we protest?"

Several neighborhood groups, including HANA, united in October as the Coalition for Sensible Planning to stop the process and restart it from scratch, perhaps in court.

The coalition spans the Santa Ynez Mountains.

"It's a huge issue and people really need to wake up to what is going on because it's going to have a huge impact," said Quinn Spaulding, of Preservation of Santa Ynez, or POSY. Others in the North County wonder why they must take the brunt when most jobs are to the south.

In January, the county Planning and Development Department announced that it will split Board of Supervisors' consideration of the housing element into two phases, because "communities have not had time to resolve some of the more controversial issues they face," according to an announcement.

The first phase, to be considered on schedule this spring, will include policies and programs that do not require ordinance changes or rezones. The more controversial policies will reach hearings by next winter. The extended time frame will cost $2 million in affordable housing grants from the state, but officials hope to preserve perhaps $1 million more by finishing some of the housing element on time.

The unincorporated South Coast has been assigned 17 percent of the new affordable housing responsibility. Orcutt in the North County got 50 percent, the most The Santa Ynez Valley would take is 10 percent, and the Lompoc area nearly 20 percent.

To find new housing sites, county planners checked records for underdeveloped parcels free of geographic or fire hazards, or other prohibitions such as endangered species habitats. They then measured proximity to schools, shopping, mass transit and utility connections.

In the Goleta Valley, the process has put more than six sites into play, including a cluster that includes the San Marcos Growers. Planners and their critics alike acknowledge that the nearly 80-acre, mostly agriculture zone near Turnpike Road and Hollister Avenue is among the most controversial spots considered.

"We want to be sure we have this last bit of breathing space in the Goleta Valley," said Barbara Greenleaf, who lives near More Mesa. "We are concerned that the Planning Department is making cynical use of the housing element update to rezone.

"We are concerned they have an agenda," continued Ms. Greenleaf, a member of the HANA steering committee. "They told us at the first meeting we are not diversified enough. This is kind of an end run for them to impose their social designs upon this area.

Opponents question why the county would abandon provisions of the 1993 Golda Community Plan that call for long-term agricultural production at the San Marcos site and others like it, and wonder what might happen to the already busy Turnpike-Hollister intersection.

Ms. Greenleaf said residents are worried the county will build up to 1,200 units at San Marcos, with dozens of them affordable. Planners say the number got circulated as a possible maximum, but that the reality is they simply want to work with neighbors to in effect write a master plan for the spot.

"They think it's a done deal, that there is going to be 1,200 units slapped on that," Ms. Plowman said. "That's not what we are talking about"

"We want this to be a neighborhood," she said, stressing the cluster might otherwise be developed piecemeal. "We want it to be connected. Maybe we could get a playground, or a park. We want to hear what the community would want for that site if it were going to be developed. A shift we are trying to make in the department is to get way from a sprawl type of development and move toward development types that allow for easy access to service and transit and recreation, so that people have the ability to conduct their lives without getting into their cars for every event"

'ALTERNATIVES POSSIBLE'

At the same time, officials are looking into the possibility of scattering units at smaller, nonagricultural sites across Goleta Valley, according to 2nd District Supervisor Susan Rose.

"I certainly would prefer not to lose ag," she said, adding she is never the less committed to creating affordable housing. "It's a challenge. Is the only way to get there to have a mass project, a dense project? I don't believe that's the only way to get there. I think we can do smaller projects with the right kind of support"

Dan Gira is looking into that approach.

The former county planning official, now a consultant, is studying the possibility of housing on nine nonagricultural Goleta Valley sites to accommodate 1,200 to 2,300 units at a density similar to others in the area -about 18 to 25 units per acre for apartments and eight to 14 units per acre for townhomes.

"Many of these could be affordable," Mr. Gira said. "It all depends how you do the densities."

Mr. Gira would not name his client, but said he will likely reveal findings of the study to the Board of Supervisors before a March 23 special hearing on the housing element update.

Housing advocates are paying attention, too. "The biggest fear without a doubt is impact," said David Fortson, executive director of the Santa Barbara Community Action Network, or SBCAN. "Traffic and parking are probably the top two. Those are credible concerns.

"We want to be able to say yes to environmental protections. We want to be able to say yes to neighborhood protections and affordable housing," he said. "The big question is how to do that we firmly believe we have the ability to, if people are willing to make small sacrifices, to preserve the large open tracts of land."

He said scattered mixed-use construction that combines housing with commercial businesses might prove the best strategy.

"We want every tool in the toolbox utilized," Mr. Fortson said. "We're not here to advocate that there's a silver bullet SBCAN is under no illusion that we have the ability to build ourselves out of this problem."

Still, "We can do better. We are blessed with creative minds in this county."

In Orcutt, a group of development watchdogs is particularly upset that the area is expected to absorb such a large percentage of the housing at seven smaller and four larger parcels, including a 146-acre tract west of Highway 101 and south of Clark Avenue and a 128-acre parcel where Highways 1 and 135 split.

"I call it the sledgehammer approach," said Olga Howard, president of the Orcutt Area Advisory Group, a citizens lobby. "We do have a semi-rural lifestyle and we would like to try to preserve that."

Added longtime Orcutt activist George Pierce: "Too much of it was put in Orcutt. There should be some put in Montecito."

If this is a fact, Montecito is poised to avoid rezones. County planners had identified two relatively small vacant sites for possible housing, and faced opposition from the Montecito Association. But now, according to Ms. Plowman, "The community is looking at trying to provide affordable housing by other mechanisms."

Employer provided housing at Westmont College or the Music Academy of the West may qualify as affordable under state rules. Other ideas include affordable units for future service workers of the Miramar Hotel and Four Seasons Biltmore, and housing for firefighters on land near the Montecito Water District

"I think it will add up," 1st District Supervisor Naomi Schwartz said.

Some county property owners, like Penelope Hartnell of New York City, are actively engaged, following the rezone proposal at every step. Her family has owned the Orcutt land at Highways 1 and 135 for generations.

"I don't know what will happen," she said. "We think all sites that are going to be built should take their fair share of affordable housing. We just hope that it will be compatible with the Old Orcutt area."

Other owners said they aren't paying much attention. Still more would not be interviewed, citing the divisive nature of the topic.

Real estate broker Reid Alexander of Camarillo owns 8.5 open acres at the Vandenberg Village core. The parcel is zoned for a shopping center, but the county would change that to a mixed commercial and residential use.

"I never thought that mixed commercial and residential was a good idea," Mr. Alexander said. "So many of the planning departments seem to think that's a great idea, especially in Santa Barbara. I wouldn't want to live above."

All the rancor here and elsewhere may prompt revisions to the state housing element law. In recent months a Housing Element Working Group of stakeholders has convened in Sacramento to study ways to strengthen or improve the law to reduce tensions and, in particular, make the county-by-county allocation of affordable housing goals more transparent and agreeable. Ideas are still emerging.

Supervisor Rose appeared confident the effort would prove fruitful: "There's going to be a lot of changes next time around."