250-Room Funk Zone Hotel Gets the Go-Ahead

••• “The City Council voted 5-2 on Tuesday to approve a 250-room hotel at 101 Garden Street, across the street from the ocean. ‘The chant of housing over hotels, to me, is a choice the developer gets to make, not a choice you place upon the development just because you like that,’ Councilman Mike Jordan said.” Amen. You can’t change the rules midway through the game. —Noozhawk

••• “The long-running saga of the closure and construction of the Four Seasons Resort The Biltmore Santa Barbara may finally have an end in sight. On Thursday, the Montecito Board of Architectural Review granted final design approval with conditions. The Biltmore design team was told to reduce the size of the family pool complex for better wheelchair accessibility around the pool, improve planting areas, and improve landscape screening for privacy. […] The Biltmore could open by next summer, said a lawyer for the hotel. —Noozhawk

••• “City Council votes to remove the house that slid down the hill [at 1037 Las Alturas Road], and stabilize the area.” —Noozhawk

••• “The county Planning Commission this week denied a zoning permit for Island Breeze Farms, a small greenhouse pot operation across Foothill Road from the Polo Condos at the western end of the Carpinteria Valley—the first time the panel turned down a cannabis project in the region.” —Newsmakers

••• Peter Lewis, who owns 610 State Street, had this to say to Noozhawk about the rental listing of the space: “At this time, Cost Plus is there, and I have no intentions of removing them. Right now, they are the tenant for what appears to be the next three years, but it doesn’t mean that we aren’t testing the market to see what, if any, other options exist.”

••• “After four months, the Tunnel Trail in Santa Barbara reopened last weekend, allowing hikers to once again access the Inspiration Point trailhead at the top of Tunnel Road.” —Noozhawk

••• Goleta History looks at the origin of the Encina Royale neighborhood east of N. Fairview Avenue.

••• “The city’s Parks & Recreation Commission is set to meet Wednesday to talk about adding lighting, extending curbs and widening sidewalks [on Milpas Street] to help improve safety. […] Three-foot-wide buffers would be added to the bike lanes between Cota and Canon Perdido streets, according to a city staff report, to improve cyclist safety, and additional bicycle parking on Milpas Street would improve cyclist access. Construction is expected to begin in 2027 in coordination with a pavement grind and overlay project, and sidewalk repairs from trees uplifting sidewalks along Milpas from Hutash to Anapamu streets.” —Noozhawk

················

Sign up for the Siteline email newsletter and you’ll never miss a post.