••• More change is coming to Santa Claus Lane: first Porch moved to Summerland, and now Bonita Beach is closing. “After the last 10 years in business, we can look back at our 3 locations —Carpinteria, Summerland, and Los Olivos—with very fond memories. They each had their own individual personalities and ties to the community. We loved every minute of creating these special environments for you to shop, enjoy, and be inspired. We treasure the relationships made with each and every one of you. As we close the doors to Bonita Beach on Santa Claus Lane we open a window via @bonita_lifestyle_ with a new location to be announced. You can follow the path of Rita Villa, owner/creator of Bonita Summerland and Bonita Beach, Toro and The Mujeres Collective as she embarks on a fresh, interactive way of shopping. You can continue to shop new deliveries of your favorite collections and more, online at BonitaLifestyle.com or through Instagram.” The new brand appears to be called Hacienda by Bonita Lifestyle. And a big sale starts Friday, September 4.
••• Interesting item regarding 635 E. Gutierrez on the agenda for the September 17 meeting of the city Planning Commission: “The project consists of a new one-story, 9,260-square-foot, 10-megawatt/40-megawatt hour battery energy storage system facility on a 14,713-square-foot (0.34-acre) lot at the corner of E. Gutierrez and N. Quarantina Streets. All existing structures would be demolished. The facility would contain lithium ion batteries stored on racks that would be seismically anchored to the building foundation and constructed with non-flammable aluminum and steel. The facility would contain medium voltage transformers and other electrical equipment. The facility would be unmanned and monitored remotely. The project includes a loading and turnaround area and no vehicular parking spaces. Grading quantities for the new facility include 6 cubic yards of cut and 1,040 cubic yards of fill. Connections to the Southern California Edison Substation located [catacorner across the intersection] would be required. The developer, esVolta, would operate the facility and Southern California Edison would purchase the stored energy from the developer over the life of the contract.” Below are the buildings to be demolished. Maybe the Planing Commission can insist on the addition of a sidewalk on Quarantina.
••• The indispensable Montecito Association—if you’re new to Montecito and you haven’t joined, get on it—recapped the county’s recent Board of Supervisors discussion regarding short-term vacation rental regulations in the Coastal Zone: “Everything outside of the Coastal Zone is supposed to be homestay, and registered with the county. The Coastal Commission rejected the county’s proposed regulations for the Coastal Zone vacation rentals in 2018. So this hearing was to look at what the county needed to put together in terms of an ordinance that the Coastal Commission would approve. […] The direction the Supervisors gave to staff was to craft an ordinance with these parameters: Whether a vacation rental owner has a primary residence here; Transition Occupancy Tax (TOT) history; Permit via annual business license; Look at overlay zones for north and south of the freeway; Explore concentration limits for neighborhoods; Explore whether it’s better to do some kind of lottery process to award licenses, or award licenses based historical TOT payers; No bedroom restrictions; One license per person; License terminates on sale of the property.”
••• From Explore Ecology: “Coastal Cleanup Month, formerly known as Coastal Cleanup Day, starts on Saturday, September 5, from 9 am to noon. Santa Barbara County community members are encouraged to participate by cleaning up litter close to home and in their neighborhoods on four Saturdays in September.”
••• The Montecito Trails Foundation emailed out an update on various trail-work projects, including the upper San Ysidro Trail: “We continue to carefully and thoughtfully make our way through the last major restoration project on San Ysidro. The lovingly dubbed Psycho Slide is looking a lot less Psycho these days. If you have a new name for it, feel free to send it along! The next stage of this project will be the restoration of walls above and just below the Waterfall. If you frequent San Ysidro, you know how necessary these next stages are! We’re looking forward to seeing a transformation making those last 300 steps before the Waterfall much easier.” Below: before and after shots of the Psycho Slide.
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