Planning commission to discuss project again on May 11

Hotel

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4.53 acres at the southwest corner of Garden and Yanonali streets. The project consists of the merger of six lots and removal of all existing structures.

The project includes 267 vehicle parking spaces (234 subterranean and 33 at-grade), 46 bicycle parking spaces (26 subterranean and 20 at-grade), and eight bicycle rental parking spaces for guests.

Guest amenities would include a library, bar, lounge, 208-square-foot market, media salon, meeting rooms, living room, breakfast area, outdoor seating areas with spa, courtyard with pool and spa, fitness room, and a 7,500-squarefoot roof deck.

“Is there a plan to address this need for workforce housing?” Commission member Devon Wardlow asked. She said two other hotels (including the Biltmore) are doing just that. “If others can figure it out, can’t you do that, too?”

The project’s architect, Brian Cearnal, said as planned, the site is to be fully used to accommodate the hotel.

“The only way to accommodate housing is to build more buildings in addition to hotel rooms,” he said. “We have not studied how to put full time housing as part of the hotel operation.”

Mr. Gilbert said the hotel was geared for “midtier” guests, families eager to spend a month or so on the coast in either select service or extended stay rooms that provide kitchens.

He said the developers are “adamant about where we’re positioned.”

“That’s why the key count (for 250 rooms) is important,” he said. “We’re trying to protect this range of motel guests.” And that can’t happen “if we have to layer on, reduce key count or have to build affordable housing.

“If we were to walk away from this as a 250key hotel, even if you came to us and said we want a hotel, but we want 200 hotel rooms and 50 affordable housing, I can tell you the deal will probably fall apart,” Mr. Gilbert said.

The commission members’ concerns about the impact on the city’s housing stock, and the lack of planned workforce housing for hotel employees, echoed comments from several public speakers.

One of them Pam Flynt Tambo, with the League of Women Voters of Santa Barbara, recognized that the property owners have the right to build what they want.

“But the city has fallen way behind in building low- and moderate-income level housing,” she said. “We believe hotel projects should be asked to mitigate the impact on housing (and) we don’t support employees commuting from Ventura and beyond.”

She urged commissioners to demand the applicants provide their future workers with on-site affordable housing.

At the least, she and other speakers said, they should be required to contribute a certain amount of fees to the city’s affordable housing trust.

Commissioner Wardlow seemed to sum up the board’s and public’s concerns when she told the developers she had “real concerns” about the project. email: nhartsteinnewspress@gmail.com

“What is clear is that there is no specific benefit to the community, to the residents, to the people who really live here, and that’s of grave concern to me,” she said.

Things have changed considerably since 2019 when the Planning Commission viewed the project favorably, she said, given the current post-COVID reality and the city’s focus on finding ways to provide housing for locals and workforce employees who commute.

“The idea that in 2019, the Planning Commission sat here and said this use was OK, I think that after COVID, given the massive housing crisis that we are in, we are in a different place today,” she said.

Mr. Gilbert later indicated that, rather than pull the project, the developers would consider providing employee housing as well as donating to the affordable housing trust.

For its part, the Planning Commission decided not to deny the project, voting 6-0 to continue its review so developers would have time to study employee housing and do neighborhood outreach.

They set May 11 as the next time the project would come before them.