Beginning steps to bring housing to the Paseo Nuevo mall goes to Santa Barbara City Council

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – The floundering Paseo Nuevo Mall, with its two anchor stores gone, is possibly going to be a partial answer to Santa Barbara's housing issues.

500 units have been proposed at the location, along with some retail.

It's been in the discussion with the mall and the city. At issue is how many units will be considered affordable. The initial plan calls for a mix of unit sizes and over 600 parking spaces. It is unclear which parking spaces are for shopping and overall downtown parking and which ones would be for residents.

The Santa Barbara City Council takes up the matter Tuesday afternoon at the regular meeting.

While the project sounds encouraging at a time when the city is looking for places to allow more housing units, it also might backfire if they were all at market price and the downtown workforce would not be able to live there.

A recent hotel project before the city identified that 70% of the employees would likely be coming from out of the area and only about 30% would need local housing.

(More details, information and video will be added here later today.)