There’s not much of a view from the ground in big cities. Columnist Bonnie Donovan wants to preserve the views people enjoy in Santa Barbara.
DID YOU KNOW? Bonnie Donovan
We have all heard about the domino effect, and often we witness the fallout – or just the fall, as established standards crumble and go by the wayside.
It is a version of “Give them an inch, and they will take a mile.”
We speak of the overbuilding in Santa Barbara. The city’s most valued assets are the proximity of the beach to the mountains with the city cradled in the small valley that lies between. And more importantly that this precious vista, whether looking down toward the beach from above or up at the mountains from most anywhere, the majesty of that view was visible to all. But not anymore.
The sky is being sold off to the highest bidder. The present Santa Barbara City Council, the city staff and the planning commission have weakened the volunteer boards and commissions, which were designed to be a system of checks and balances to keep Santa Barbara special.
The panels relinquished their ability to provide valued input. Instead, the city employees dryly direct the boards as to what they can weigh in on, which only amounts to colors and neighborhood compatibility and tree choices (aesthetics of design, materials, and landscaping). Well, almost that inconsequential.
An example of the overbuilding of Santa Barbara, most recently discussed by the Architectural Board of Review, is planned in the Eastside in the 700 block of North Milpas Street.
The proposed apartment building was Item 4 of the ABR’s Sept. 6 meeting — “the continued item of project design approval” (for the behemoth and sorry sell-out of the eastside in the name of more housing).
What a waste of time for the volunteer boards, which are made up of professionals donating their time in the name of standards. We say that because the city has already given approval by way of a development agreement by the city council and allowed for height exceptions, front set back and parking modifications by the planning commission. All of that was done with no concern for the neighbors or the view of Santa Barbara’s Riviera.
And there’s the giveaway of the public’s street in the 800 block of East Ortega Street, which dead ends at the side entrance to the Santa Barbara Junior High School. That was done to accommodate the project’s minimum parking requirements.
Nothing in this project is compatible with the neighborhood. The combined parcels look bigger than Paseo Nuevo with less panache — like an ugly elongated shoebox, fit for the side of the freeway on the way to Los Angeles. Obviously, the impressionable junior high school children will no longer benefit from the view of the mountains while on the playing field, but instead a view of an apartment building.
The views, which most developers use as a focal selling point and which we all cherish, have sadly been reduced to a governmental code.
The General Plan states at ER29.2 a:
“The importance of the existing view is from a heavily used public viewpoint, such as a public gathering area, major public transportation corridor or area of intensive pedestrian and bicycle use.”
From the front of the building, sure, you can see the Riviera, but with the four sides of a building, it blocks the views from the surrounding neighbors. Plus, it creates the domino effect.
Witness 418 N. Milpas St. What the developers proposed is a 110,507 square-feet hospital type-complex masked as a residential/hotel development for a community benefit.
Yes, housing is needed, but why not stay at two stories and preserve the view for all? So what if it takes twice as long to capitalize on the investment? Good people have done that for years.
Milpas will mirror Chapala ; stand at Gutierrez and Chapala streets. There will be no no evidence of the mountain range to the east. Recall what former Santa Barbara Mayor Marty Blum said, “We didn’t know the buildings would be so high.”
The saddest part is how deflated the members of the ABR appeared, as they floundered trying to make a difference, and while Jarrett Gorrion, a hired hand for the project, gave the ABR a directive to which elements they were allowed to make comments. Such audacity. Everyone knows this project is grossly incompatible with the Milpas corridor, and everyone knows it is wrong for anywhere in Santa Barbara.
It looks like a schlock shopping mall. On the east side, on Milpas. The word “Milpas” means corn field. It’s a corn hole for sure.
Now for some cake to go with the corn served to us by our local officials. (And to think we actually elected them.)
Our U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal, Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s acolyte, just served up some crumbs for the people. One would think that this largesse, in reducing medical costs for the few, came from his own efforts and from his own pocket, instead of the pockets of all federal income taxpayers. This money comes out of our current incomes, our future incomes, and our future debt load too.
The federal government annual budget is a joke at $5.893 trillion. The government is overspending it by 25.5%, almost $1.5 trillion this year. The accumulated debt from years past will be $31 trillion by year’s end and will grow fast again in 2023. Across the nation, business leaders and economists are becoming very concerned about run-away government debt.
The largest items in the current budget are the costs of Medicare and Medicaid combined, at $1.42 trillion a year and rising. But, hidden, are the unfunded liabilities of future financial commitments to Medicare and Medicaid amounting to $34.5 trillion, which is greater than all of the existing, official, government debt put together.
The fourth largest budget item is interest payments on the national debt at $445 billion a year and rising.
Add to all this, student loans of $1.769 trillion, of which a substantial amount is to be forgiven, and we see what looks like a government-managed vote-buying scheme. All this is why taxes must rise substantially and 87,000 IRS enforcement agents are to be hired.
If you are a payer of federal income taxes, your share of the current, official debt load is $245,191 per taxpayer. It will be greater in years to come.
Did you know, out of a U.S. population of 333,106,404, only 125,737,940 actually pay federal income taxes? Almost two-thirds of the population are dependent, in one way or another, on just over one-third.
All this is today. The future costs in money and hardship to eliminate fossil fuels for wind and solar, on an accelerated schedule, are incalculable.
