Santa Barbara County supervisors discuss North County sites to rezone for new housing
SANTA MARIA, Calif. – The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors is holding two separate special meetings this week to decide which sites it plans to rezone in order to meet state housing requirements.
California law requires that Santa Barbara County will need to have enough housing in order to meet its 2023-2031 Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA), which totals 5,664 units, including 1,522 units for the North County and 4,142 units for the South Coast.
The 2023-2031 Santa Barbara County Housing Element Update (HEU) has identified 18 potential rezone sites in the North County and 18 potential rezone sites and nine County-owned sites in the South Coast.
"What we're doing right now is we have to rezone properties because there's so many houses that we have to build," said Steve Lavagnino, Santa Barbara County District Four Supervisor and Board Chair. "There's not all that residential property, so we're looking at, rezoning commercial property and rezoning agricultural property and figuring out where are we going to put all these new houses."
Supervisors met for about four hours on Tuesday and discussed recommendations made by the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission on potentially rezoning 18 sites in the North County.
The County must meet its RHNA allocation in order to create enough housing for people who are designated into lower- and moderate income categories.
"Today we heard all the North County projects, which are almost exclusively in Orcutt," said Lavagnino. "There's one in Cuyama, and one in the Santa Ynez Valley. Orcutt is going to be the recipient of a lot of new housing. For some people, that means more traffic, but for folks, there's other folks like myself, too, you've got kids and grandkids that you want to keep in the valley. There's a delicate balance of building enough housing so that we can afford to continue to have our families live here, but you have to balance that with the fact that we're just getting bigger and bigger and bigger."
While Supervisors did not officially vote on any of the North County sites, they did indicate which ones they support and will approve when the formal vote is taken Friday.
Many of the recommended Orcutt locations were given preliminary approval by supervisors, such as one known known as Key Site 11, which is located along Clark Avenue and Orcutt Road, just east of Highway 135.
District Five Supervisor Bob Nelson, who represents Orcutt, said two main factors were considered during his review of project sites, what locations are best suited for jobs and potential positive impacts for the community.
"Obviously, Vandenberg Space Force Base is a growing economic driver in the Santa Barbara County and, we keep hearing from base personnel and base leadership that they need to have additional housing units that can serve not only those military personnel, but those support services. Not having enough housing is actually limited the amount of activity that they've been able to have at Vandenberg," said Nelson. "I want to be responsive to that, and that was a huge priority in the selection of the sites, as well as the Orcutt community lacks a lot of commercial services and recreational services, so I wanted to see projects move forward that would also bring a community benefit and economic benefit to our neighborhoods."
Tuesday's hearing took place at the Joseph Centeno Betteravia Government Administration Building in Santa Maria, while Friday's meeting is set for the Board of Supervisors Chambers in County Administration Building in Santa Barbara beginning at 9 a.m.
