September 1999

COMMUNITY AGENDA

Every Tuesday @ 9 AM

Board of Supervisors meets _ on Channel 20.

Every Wednesday @ 9 AM

Planning Commission meets _ on Channel 20.

September 28 _ Board of Supervisors hearing on Affordable housing.

October 6-Gail Marshall neighborhood meeting. 6:30 PM Mountain View School. Subject: speed limits.

October 17 _ Creek week kickoff _ Tour of San Jose Creek restoration projects. 9 till noon. Meet at Berkeley footbridge.

October 27 _ Goleta Roundtable @ 7 PM - Library

These dates change frequently _ for the latest dates, times and locations; or to add information -call Jack Hawxhurst at 683-9068.

HOT OFF THE PRESS

City of Goleta Boundary Petition

The initial results are coming in. PANA residents in the area beween Cambridge Drive and Patterson Avenue, and between Cathedral Oaks and Calle Real have been returning their petitions regarding the eastern boundary of the proposed City of Goleta.

We asked registered voters in this area whether they wished to remain outside the boundary, or be included within the new City. Over 22% of the 1316 registered voters have returned petitions within the first 3 weeks. Results show that 78% remain against being included in a City of Goleta, just as they were in the 1993 vote. It appears Goleta Now! guessed right.

PANA will submit this information to LAFCO in the hope that the wishes of the majority will be respected by the authorities. However, it would be considerably more convincing if an actual majority of petitions were to be returned.

Surely, over half the residents care about this issue. Please send in your signed petition.

The Goleta Now! petition drive to obtain 25% of the voter signatures by the end of this year, calling for a vote on the proposed City without Isla Vista or the area east of Cambridge Drive is half complete. It is interesting that on the western side of Cambridge Drive, 87% are signing petitions FOR the City, while on the eastern side of the street only 22% are in favor. In just 8 weeks from Independence Day to the end of August, half of the minimum needed signatures were already in hand. Goleta Now! expects to complete the drive in a fraction of the allowed time.

Orchard Park SUCCESS

The housing project at the northwest corner of Patterson and Calle Real has made it through the approval process with your help. This project will involve 20 units instead of 48 units on the 5 acres. Most agree that it will be a good looking project, in character with our neighborhoods.

This is a direct result of JM Development's willingness to listen, PANA involvement at both the Board of Architectural Review and Planning Commission, and YOUR letters. Neighbors submitted 375 letters expressing their viewpoint.

Supervisor Rose was of great assistance. Even County staff made positive contributions in the end.

Now the Albertsons site across Calle Real remains for future attention. There is no new word on this project coming forward.

Fairview Center

By the time you receive this you will probably know that besides doubling the size of Vons (lessening the chance of Albertsons at Patterson), Michaels has opened, and both of our highly appreciated Anna's Bakery and Jasper's are leaving for the Big Box.

NEIGHBORHOOD TRAFFIC COP

Calle Real Widening and Extension

The on-again off-again plan to widen Calle Real to four lanes with a planted median at the Maravilla, seems to be on-again. Looks like the completion date for Maravilla has been moved back another year to the fall of 2001.

PANA held its meeting in May regarding the Calle Real extension to Turnpike with about 80 to 100 attendees. The end result was a straw poll indicating the community would be willing to consider such a plan ONLY IF it avoided neighborhood impacts and offered something constructive, such as preventing the Albertsons project. Nothing heard from the County on this issue since.

Area Road Maintenance

PANA Directors have inspected many of our area side streets during morning walks over the summer. We sent a letter to the County identifying those in the worst state of repair and received a reply that we could expect all repairs to be made within the next year.

This work has already begun on Patterson and Cambridge. Other streets mentioned included: Parkwood Place, Pintura Place, Loreto Place, Harvard Lane, Stanford Place, Kings Way, Danbury Court, Albany Court, Arundel, Wakefield and Lexington.

Fairview Overpass Closing

Isn't it amazing how much traffic changes with the closure of just one freeway ramp? Fairview Avenue has almost no traffic on it. Has the County decided not to repave Fairview during August - preferring to wait for the traffic to return instead?

Patterson Avenue has an unbearable traffic load. PANA contacted the County and CALTRANS regarding putting in the double left turn lanes on the southbound ramp now, as planned for the Maravilla latter. Unfortunately, such a project would take longer than the Fairview closure.

Between Patterson and Fairview there have been additional problems. Berkeley, east of Fairview has become a main channel over to Patterson, and a bit of a raceway. PANA has intervened to increase enforcement of speed limits on this street. The streets of University and Berkeley to the west of Patterson have witnessed speeders trying to find a connection from Patterson to Fairview. PANA has contacted the County regarding signs to discourage this practice.

University Drive Signal

The new Patterson/ University signal is obviously being installed. With the increased traffic on Patterson, it is sorely needed for pedestrian and bike traffic on the key east-west route. It is unfortunate that it also attracts traffic to University Drive. Some are also worried that left turn striping on Patterson will lure traffic onto University. Signs should prevent this.

Soon another signal will be installed at Patterson and Overpass Road on the other side of the freeway.

COMMUNITY-WIDE ISSUES

Airport Gateway Center

The 180,000 square foot project north of Hollister and west of the old Drive-In Theater is approved. The plan by the City of Santa Barbara to DUMP yet another major impact into the middle of Goleta was greatly modified by the appeal of Goleta Supervisors Rose and Marshall.

It was a brave move by our local Supervisors, eventually supported by all five County Supervisors and PANA, to make the first ever such appeal of a City project. The appeal was dropped after the City made the following major concessions. It agreed to pay $2.2 million in traffic mitigation fees _ just like any other developer. It agreed to develop the Hollister Avenue Landscaping Master Plan leading to a beautified street between Fairview and Los Carneros. Finally, there are prospects for mitigating impacts on area Parks by conversion of the Drive-In Theater to an active recreation park.

All of Goleta should applaud the City's eventual agreement to be a good neighbor.

Bishop Ranch

PANA broke the story to the papers regarding the County consultations with the developer of Bishop Ranch. Bishop Ranch is the huge 250 acre open area south of Cathedral Oaks Road, between Los Carneros and Glenn Annie. It is designated as Agricultural zoning until the 2003 update of the Goleta Community Plan.

While there is little doubt that Goleta is unable to house the people who work here, it is more a result of overdeveloping jobs than under-developing housing. The proposal to build over 1000 housing units here would "break" the Community Plan in the constrained resources of water and sewer, as well as unplanned traffic congestion. The plans were to include areas of "dense" housing that is so much in vogue with community planners. Supervisor Marshall has opposed this project.

Los Carneros Master Plan

As this is written, this project has yet to be reported by the media. It involves the areas on both sides of Los Carneros, south of the freeway and north of Hollister. West of Los Carneros is the "Raytheon site" owned by Bermant Development. East of Los Carneros is the site owned by Towbes Development that was offered as a competitor for the Big Box.

The County has applied for a grant to plan a 1500 unit development on these 60 acres. This makes the Bishop Ranch proposal of 1000 units on 250 acres look wonderful. It consists of 20 acres of housing on 4000 square foot lots, 20 acres of multi-family housing at 40 to 50 units per acre, 13 acres of park and 7 acres of office/ commercial.

Conversion of an excessive amount of commercial zoned property to residential makes sense as stated above. But only if there are water, sewer, and transportation resources to support it. These resources are not available.

This is a good site for such uses compared to ones near existing neighborhoods. But there is NO site in Goleta where 40 to 50 units per acre is acceptable. County planners are always pushing for double what is reasonable. Our community must not be redesigned and ruined to accommodate an extra 5000 people.

El Encanto/Calle Real Apartments

A new, relatively minor "affordable" apartment project is being proposed near the 7-11. It involves 18 units on less than an acre and third stories. This appears to be intended to set precedent for a larger parcel nearby. PANA opposes all third stories north of the freeway _ not just Maravilla.

Affordable Housing

The Orchard Park, Bishop Ranch, Los Carneros and El Encanto projects are all part of the larger debate currently unfolding over Affordable Housing in the County. Rapid creation of new jobs and rapidly rising housing prices have attracted much political attention. The Board of Supervisors are conducting a series of hearings on the subject in an effort to find out how to provide housing that is affordable for real working people.

The problem is that land costs are so high that "affordable" means "dense." Goleta is over 85% complete and it still remains a suburban community. Many wish to convince us to become an "urban" community, more dense, and renounce our dependence on cars _ all in the name of the environment. If Goleta takes the density, then the Gaviota Coast, City of Santa Barbara, Santa Ynez and Montecito will not have to take the density. And density usually seems to also mean UGLY, as in the case of the two projects across from the Big Box called Storke Ranch, and Pacific Glen at Storke and the freeway. Just a couple years ago, dense was 24 units per acre. Now density of 50 units per acre is being proposed.

According to a recent County report on Affordable Housing, Goleta has seen 95% of the County units DUMPED on Goleta. It showed 628 of 658 County Affordable rental units in Goleta. It also showed 602 of 626 South Coast Affordable units were built or planned for Goleta. So it will be particularly interesting to see if the current hearings lead to proposals for thousands of additional DENSE and UGLY units in Goleta.

The County has produced "affordable" apartments that convert to market rate after only 5 years _ eliminating the subsidized unit. It has produced affordable units for sale that allow the purchaser to keep the equity upon resale _ eliminating the subsidized unit. The affordable program boils down to building modern new housing for those that can't afford it, instead of building free-market housing to attract those that can afford to move up and leave the older units behind for those less fortunate. It has developed a significant government staff to advocate and manage the affordable program. It now advocates building subsidized housing for underpaid government employees, who are standing in line to move here.

If Goleta can be a PART of a County-wide solution to affordable housing, PANA supports that approach. If affordable does not mean DENSE and UGLY, PANA supports it when compatible with existing neighborhoods. If there are community resources to support changes to the Community Plan, PANA will consider the impacts. If some of the over-abundance of commercially zoned property can be converted to housing, consistent with the above issues, PANA supports it.

In other words, we are not against real working people. We wish to find a responsible portion of them a way to live here as long as it does not mean a drastic change in the character of our community. We do not wish to be urbanized. We do not wish to become the County capital for dense and ugly housing.

If you are a PANA resident who wishes to have us modify this position, please contact us. We strive to represent you.

PANA STATUS REPORT

PANA involves 10 members of the Board of Directors, 180 contributors, plus an additional 300 who have attended informational gatherings. We also stay in contact with over 50 leaders of other groups and elected bodies. Speed Bump is distributed to over 3000 area addresses, as a result of your support. PANA's area is north of the freeway between Turnpike Road and Fairview Avenue. Our considerable strength comes from you.

Henry Shames and Bud Sprague have joined the PANA Board. Henry hails from the area just west of Turnpike at Ramada. Bud is from way up in the Caminos above North Patterson. They join (from northeast to southwest) Edith Feniger (Treasurer), Jude Blau, Jim Jeter (Secretary), Ron Fenn, Harlan Green, Heather Georgakis, Richard Whited (Vice President), and Jack Hawxhurst.

WE NEED YOUR HELP

We need your contributions to continue our newsletter distribution. When you contribute to PANA, more of your neighbors learn what is happening around our area. Please think of your contributions as extending PANA's reach - not just getting the newsletter to yourself.

So many of you have been kind enough to help in the past, that we have no plans to expand circulation further. Some send a little each time, while some send a lot all at once. Either works. But it may have been a year ago that you last helped PANA with your contribution. Please consider helping again - or joining in for the first time. This time we have enclosed a return envelope.

We hope you agree that our record of volunteer effort and success in representing the Patterson Area Neighborhoods speaks for itself.