Dear Architectural Colleagues & Concerned Citizens of SB,
As you may know, the SB City Planning Commission will take their recommendations to the City Council regarding Plan Santa Barbara next Tuesday, June 22 at 6:00 pm at the David Gebhard meeting room. This General Plan Document will be the blueprint for our community's planning efforts for the next 20 years. If you live or work in Santa Barbara (or have family or staff who do) please let your voice be heard regarding these important planning and community growth issues.
A broad array of civic minded groups groups (including the AIA, Community Environmental Council, SB4ALL, SBCA, American Planning Association, SB Board of Realtors, US Green Building Council and over a dozen Architects from our AIA SB Chapter) have been involved with this process for the past 3 years now. As the AIASB Government Relations Chairman, I have attended as many of these meetings, presentations, workshops, and public hearings as possible and through our network of concerned colleagues have made sure that the AIA was present and represented at the most of the important meetings and hearings. However, now is the time for members of our professional design community and concerned citizens to voice their positions regarding the General Plan Process and we need your support! At this time the AIA SB Chapter Board does not want to take a formal position on the current Plan Santa Barbara Document or the Planning Commission's recommendations. However we are encouraging individual members of the AIA and concerned citizens of our community to get involved and to make their personal positions known. For those of us who have been involved in the process for years, we want to let you know that NOW IS THE TIME for Architects & Citizens to step up and be heard. While certainly not perfect, we think that in general Plan Santa Barbara has got the big things right, including allowing for controlled growth and appropriate densities in and around the downtown area, coupled with a aggressive traffic management system to be phased in over time, relaxing standards on second residential units and the like. In general, many of us feel that the recommendations put forth by our Planning Commission sets us on the right path for a sustainable Santa Barbara and that these guidelines are consistent with AIA National, AIA State and USGBC regional and local planning principles and policies.
However, there will be representatives there on Tuesday who will disagree with the Planning Commission recommendations, and who may urge the Council to go back and re-debate each particular item. We urge you to write a short letter or email ASAP and to make plans to attend and/or send your colleagues and friends to the hearing on Tuesday night to support the recommendations of the Planning Commission. Again, while certainly NOT PERFECT the new General Plan Document includes most of what we all could hope for regarding a GREEN and SUSTAINABLE BLUEPRINT for the future of our community. Planning Commissioners John Jostes and Bruce Bartlett AIA have stepped up to include some very forward thinking planning recommendations and guidelines. It is our suggestion that the current GENERAL PLAN should be improved "in total as presented". The opposition wants to encourage City Council take it all back apart, debate individual elements and ultimately reduce densities and eliminate many of the GREEN / SUSTAINABLE and new urbanism concepts which the plan currently embraces and which will provide for controlled sustainable healthy growth for our community.
Please send a short letter or email to each of the City Council addresses listed at the bottom of this email. Feel free to give me a call with any questions.
Best regards,
Michael
J. Michael Holliday AIA, LEED AP
Principal Architect
J.M. Holliday Associates Inc.
Architecture / Planning / Interior Design / Management / Environmental Consulting
288 Rosario Park Road, Santa Barbara, CA 93105
(phone) 805-452-9542 (fax) 805-456-3864
(email) mholliday@jmhassociates.net
SUMMARY OF POINTS FOR CONSIDERATION
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Here are some quick talking points that might be helpful:
* We support the Planning Commission's recommendations.
* Their recommendations are the positive result of literally years of community discussion, public workshops and planning commission study and deliberation.
* The process worked. Plan Santa Barbara has been a huge investment by the City in terms of money and time, but in the end, the Planning Commission has reached consensus about how best to plan for the future of our beautiful city.
* While we may not agree with every item, taken together, the Planning Commission's package of recommendations will further the goals outlined in Plan Santa Barbara, including sustainability, living within our resources and providing affordable housing for our local workforce.
* The specific recommendations are future-oriented, which is what Plan Santa Barbara should be. They are designed to protect the City's heritage and ensure that more local workers can live near jobs, getting commuters off the road and continuing the City's long tradition of environmental leadership. Importantly, there is flexibility built in to the recommendations to ensure that projects that provide community benefit can become a reality.
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In case you want to reference any of the the Planning Commission's specific recommendations, they can be found in the meeting minutes:
http://www.santabarbaraca.gov/Documents/Advisory_Groups/Planning_Commission/Current/04_Minutes/2010-06-03%20June%2003,%202010.pdf
(Note that we believe the motion and recommendation as approved by the PC would actually allow for more than 60 units/acre in some cases, such as where the rental overlay and or bonus density applied...we are attempting to clarify this with staff.)