Outraged Santa Barbara residents jumped into motion when a developer unveiled plans final 12 months for a towering condominium complicated nearby of the historic Previous Mission.
They complained to metropolis officers, wrote letters and shaped a nonprofit to attempt to block the undertaking. Nonetheless, the developer’s plans went ahead.
Then one thing uncommon occurred.
4 hundred miles away in Sacramento, state lawmakers quietly tucked language into an obscure funds invoice requiring an environmental impression examine of the proposed improvement — which housing advocates allege was an try to dam the undertaking.
The laws, Senate Invoice 158, signed into legislation by Gov. Gavin Newsom, didn’t point out the Santa Barbara undertaking by title. However the provision was so detailed and particular it couldn’t apply to some other improvement within the state.
The fallout was swift: The developer sued the state and a Santa Barbara lawmaker, the highly effective new president of the state Senate, is beneath scrutiny over her function within the invoice.
The present property situated on the proposed location for the eight-story condominium tower.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Instances)
The saga highlights the governor’s and state Legislature’s rising affect in native housing choices, and the battle between cities and Sacramento to deal with California’s vital housing scarcity.
Within the face of California’s excessive value of housing and lease, state leaders are more and more passing new housing mandates that require cities and counties to speed up the development of latest housing and ease the boundaries impeding builders.
On this case, the legislation concentrating on the Santa Barbara improvement does the other by making it tougher to construct.
‘A horrendous nightmare’
The combat began final 12 months after builders Craig and Stephanie Smith laid out formidable plans for an eight-story housing undertaking with a minimum of 250 residences at 505 East Los Olivos St.
The five-acre web site is close to the Previous Mission Santa Barbara, which pulls a whole lot of 1000’s of vacationers every year.
In Santa Barbara, a slow-growth haven the place many condominium buildings are two tales, the Los Olivos undertaking was perceived as a skyscraper. The mayor, Randy Rowse, referred to as the proposal “a horrendous nightmare,” based on native media web site Noozhawk.
However the developer had a bonus. California legislation requires cities and counties to develop plans for progress each eight years to deal with California’s rising inhabitants. Jurisdictions are required to pinpoint areas the place housing or density might be added.
If cities and counties fail to develop plans by every eight-year deadline, a provision kicks in referred to as “builder’s treatment.”
It permits builders to bypass native zoning restrictions and construct greater, denser initiatives so long as low or moderate-income models are included.
Santa Barbara was nonetheless working with the state on its housing plan when the deadline handed in February 2023. The plan was full by December of that 12 months, however didn’t change into official till the state licensed it in February 2024.
Opponents of the proposed Santa Barbara improvement, clockwise from backside left: Cheri Rae, Brian Miller, Evan Minogue, Tom Meaney, Fred Sweeney and Steve Forsell.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Instances)
A month prior, in January, the builders submitted their plans. And since they included 54 low-income models, town couldn’t outright deny the undertaking.
“The builders had been enjoying chess whereas town was enjoying checkers,” stated Evan Minogue, a Santa Barbara resident against the event.
He stated older generations in California resisted change, leaving the state to come back in with “heavy-handed, one-size-fits-all insurance policies to drive cities to do one thing about housing.”
Santa Barbara, a rich metropolis that pulls celebrities, bohemian artist-types and environmental activists, has a protracted historical past of preventing to maintain its small-town really feel.
In 1975, the Metropolis Council adopted a plan to restrict improvement, together with water consumption and site visitors, and maintain a cap on town’s inhabitants at 85,000. Within the late ‘90s, actor Michael Douglas — an alum of UC Santa Barbara — donated cash to protect town’s largest stretch of coastal land.
Hemmed in by the Santa Ynez Mountains, town is dominated by low-slung buildings and single-family properties. The median dwelling worth is $1.8 million, based on Zillow. A metropolis report final 12 months detailed the necessity for 8,000 extra models, primarily for low-income households, over the approaching years.
Stephanie and Craig Smith, the builders of the undertaking at 505 East Los Olivos Road.
(Ashley Gutierrez)
Assemblymember Gregg Hart, whose district consists of Santa Barbara, helps the language within the funds invoice requiring the environmental overview. He doesn’t wish to see the proposed improvement tower over the Previous Mission and blames the builder’s treatment legislation for its introduction.
“It’s a superb illustration of how damaged the ‘builder’s treatment’ system is,” stated Hart. “Proposing initiatives like this undermines assist for constructing density in Santa Barbara.”
Related pushback has been seen in Santa Monica, Huntington Seaside and different small cities as builders scramble to make use of the builder’s treatment legislation. A notable instance just lately performed out in La Cañada Flintridge, the place builders pushed by means of a mixed-use undertaking with 80 models on a 1.29-acre lot regardless of fierce opposition from town.
Nonetheless, the controversial legislation doesn’t exempt developments from overview beneath the California Environmental High quality Act, often called CEQA, the state’s landmark coverage requiring a examine of the undertaking’s results on site visitors, air high quality and extra.
The builders behind the Los Olivos Road undertaking sought to keep away from the environmental overview, nonetheless, due to a brand new state legislation that permits many city infill initiatives to keep away from such necessities. Meeting Invoice 130, primarily based on laws launched by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), was signed into legislation by Newsom in June.
When the Los Olivos builders requested metropolis officers about utilizing AB 130 for his or her undertaking, a Santa Barbara neighborhood developer director advised them in July 2025 that the CEQA overview was crucial. AB 130 doesn’t apply if the undertaking is deliberate close to a creek and wetland habitat, or different environmentally delicate space, the director wrote.
Months later, the state Legislature handed its funds invoice requiring the overview.
Santa Barbara residents who oppose the undertaking stated they didn’t ask for the invoice.
But when the overview finds that site visitors from the event would overwhelm hearth evacuation routes, as an example, they might have a better time preventing the undertaking.
“We don’t wish to come off as NIMBYs,” resident Fred Sweeney, who opposes the undertaking, stated, referring to the phrase “not in my yard.” Sweeney, an architect, and others began the nonprofit Good Motion for Progress and Fairness to spotlight the Los Olivos undertaking and a second one deliberate by the identical developer.
Standing close to the undertaking web site on a current day, Sweeney pointed as automobiles lined up alongside the primary highway. It wasn’t but rush hour, however site visitors was already constructing.
A ‘actually unusual’ invoice
Buried deep in Senate Invoice 158, the invoice handed by state lawmakers concentrating on the Los Olivos undertaking, is a point out of the state legislation round infill city housing developments. Senate Invoice 158 clarified that sure developments shouldn’t be exempt from this legislation.
Developments in “a metropolis with greater than 85,000 however fewer than 95,000 individuals, and inside a county of between 440,00 and 455,000 individuals,” and that are additionally close to a historic landmark, regulatory floodway and watershed, are usually not exempt, the invoice acknowledged.
In line with the 2020 census, Santa Barbara has a inhabitants of 88,768. Santa Barbara County has a inhabitants of 448,229. And the undertaking sits close to each a creek and the Santa Barbara Mission.
The controversial improvement match the invoice.
Monique Limón is president professional tem of the California state Senate.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Instances)
A consultant for Senate President Professional Tem Monique Limón advised CalMatters that the senator was concerned in crafting that exemption language.
Throughout a tour of an avocado farm in Ventura final month, Limón declined to touch upon her function. She cited the lawsuit and directed inquiries to Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s workplace.
Limón, who was born and raised in Santa Barbara, confirmed that she did speak to Sweeney — who began the nonprofit to combat the event — about opposition to the event.
The Los Olivos undertaking had “numerous neighborhood involvement and participation,” she stated. “When it comes to suggestions, what I perceive, studying the articles, there are over 400 people who have weighed in on it … it’s a really public undertaking.”
Limón additionally defended her housing document.
“Every bit of laws I creator or overview, I accomplish that primarily based on the wants of our state but in addition with the lens of the neighborhood I signify — whether or not that’s housing, schooling, environmental protections or some other points that come throughout my desk,” Limón stated.
The builders filed a lawsuit towards town and state in October, claiming that SB 158 targets one particular undertaking: theirs. As such, it might be unlawful beneath federal legislation, which bans “particular laws” that targets a single individual or property.
The house at the moment situated on the proposed improvement web site.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Instances)
The go well with claims that Limón promoted and ushered the invoice by means of the state Senate, argues that it must be overturned and questions the required environmental overview, which might possible add years to its timeline and tens of millions to its funds.
Stephanie Smith, one of many builders, advised The Instances that the invoice was born of the “protests of rich householders, lots of whom cosplay as housing advocates till the proposed housing is of their neighborhood.”
“As a former homeless pupil who labored full time and lived in my automotive, I do know what it means to wrestle to afford housing. Dwelling with out safety or dignity gave me a foundational perception that housing is a nonnegotiable fundamental human proper,” Smith stated.
Public coverage advocates and specialists expressed concern about state lawmakers utilizing their energy to meddle with native housing initiatives, particularly when carving out exemptions from legal guidelines they’ve imposed on everybody else within the state.
“It’s exhausting to disregard when laws is drafted in a narrowly tailor-made approach — particularly when such language seems late within the course of with little public enter,” stated Sean McMorris of fine authorities group California Widespread Trigger. “Payments developed on this method threat fostering public cynicism in regards to the legislative course of and the motivations behind narrowly centered policymaking.”
UC Davis College of Regulation professor Chris Elmendorf, who focuses on housing coverage, referred to as the invoice’s particular language “actually unusual” and questioned whether or not it might survive a authorized problem.
He expects to see extra pleadings for exemptions from state housing legal guidelines.
“Native teams that don’t need the undertaking are going to the legislature to get the reduction that, in a earlier period, they might have gotten from their metropolis council,” Elmendorf stated.
UC Santa Barbara pupil Enri Lala is the founder and president of a pupil housing group. He stated the invoice goes towards a current pro-housing motion within the space.
“It’s definitely out of the odd,” stated Lala. “This isn’t the sort of transfer that we wish to see repeated sooner or later.”
