••• “The City Council on Tuesday denied an appeal to block a 66-room hotel project that would go on the site of the Press Room pub at 15 E. Ortega St.” I guess the but-it’s-my-favorite-bar defense didn’t work. —Noozhawk
••• “Santa Barbara City Council Grants $6M Loan to Convert Hotel to Housing […] Housing Authority Will Bring 32 Units of Extremely Low-Income Housing for Homeless Individuals” at the Quality Inn at the top of De La Vina Street. —Independent
••• “Smartphone, GPS and credit card data are being used to learn how people travel, where they travel, and why they travel” in Santa Barbara County “to make decisions about mobility, transportation and even housing development. The data is not trackable to individuals and only used to determine overall trends. […] About 66% of people who live in Santa Barbara, work in Santa Barbara. Another 8.8% come from Goleta, 2.5% from Montecito and 2.1% from Carpinteria. Including unincorporated areas, 83.4% of work trips into Santa Barbara are from the South Coast.” —Noozhawk
••• “No one has proposed drilling an onshore exploratory oil well [in the North County] for at least 10 years and likely much longer, county planners say. The existing fields are nearing exhaustion; drilling for oil is expensive, and a switch to solar and wind projects is getting underway in a dangerously warming world. So in some ways, it’s surprising that the West Bay Exploration Co., the largest oil producer in Michigan, is seeking a county permit to drill a test oil and gas well on a private ranch in the Cuyama Valley.” —Independent
••• The tree of the month is the silver dollar gum: “Juvenile leaves are circular in shape with a bluish-gray to silver color; hence the common name, ‘Silver Dollar Gum.’ As the leaves mature, they elongate and turn a gray to green-gray color. Mature leaves are lanceolate-shaped […], occur alternately on the twigs, and have reddish colored petioles (stems), leaf margins, and midribs. Leaves of any age have oil blisters scattered on their surfaces; when the leaves are crushed, they exude the delightful fragrance of eucalyptus oil. From late December through February, eye-catching flowers can completely cover the tree crown. Creamy-white flowers (1/2 inch in diameter) form in large clusters on the ends of branches.” —Edhat
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Homeless housing directly across from BevMo. Go figure.
It’s easy to imagine the place filled with homeless winos, but if you consider that 30% of the homeless in Santa Barbara are children you have to change your thinking and realize that this will get families out of their cars and into decent shelter.
According to what I’ve read that is not who will be housed there. It’s single individuals. Not families. I may be wrong but that’s the reporting I’ve seen.
DRILL BABY DRILL!
In the Press Room fight if you think the defense was “I guess the but-it’s-my-favorite-bar defense didn’t work. ” then you are either willfully ignorant or weren’t paying attention. Building yet another hotel amongst declining vacancy rates that virtually no one in the community wants building – except other wealthy developers or those with vested interests – is not even close to sound community planning. Honestly, check yourself, Siteline.
Wealthy developers are Siteline’s jam.
At first, I thought this was said in jest, but nope. Says everything you need to know about New 33% More Filler Vacuous Downtown Santa Barbara that helps no one except rich people who don’t live here who know how to out-lawyer us:
“The Press Room and the parking lot next to it are clearly in the center of town and are an undeveloped parcel sitting there right now,” Jordan said. “Regardless of whether you are going to save the Press Room or not, that is just obscenely underdeveloped as to the best use for where it is right now.”
Remember that scene in Idocracy where the Costo is something like 5 miles long? Let’s just get it over with and make downtown SB one huge stucco building from Mission to the ocean, Milpas to the 101, and be done with it. I’m sure the same person owns 99% of downtown anyway.
Did someone say “Obscenely underdeveloped”
Nicely spoken.
Oh and while you remove the rubble of what was once pleasant, please remove the “C” from Charm. You guys are doing a great job.