Info Sheet

Bungalow Haven, the original workforce housing in Santa Barbara, a neighborhood of middle class individuals who have managed to get into the housing market and hold on, despite rising cost of living. We are nurses, lots of teachers, retired folks, self-employed artists, writers, a cabinet-maker, stay-at-home moms, we have a neighbor who drives to LA twice a week for his job at Disney, several long-time residents have moved away, turning their homes into rentals, others have become second houses for out-of-towners. We still have potlucks and block parties, and we do know our next-door neighbors--we welcome new neighbors, we don’t live in a museum, we don’t resist change, but we do resist destruction of a valuable resource. We consider ourselves stewards of our homes and our neighborhood and we’re deeply concerned about waste, and we have a responsibility to preserve and protect and fully participate in the process by asking questions and making sure they are answered fully and completely.

--On the Forefront of Neighborhood Preservation
--Participated in Innovative Traffic Calming measures
--Encourage other Neighborhoods to be Proactive Best Solution? No one doubts the need for reasonably priced housing for middle class workers, what many of us continue to doubt is that this is the best solution--particularly when there are other options that we don’t believe have been fully explored.
--Cottage’s parcel of land they were able to build adjacent to Goleta Valley hospital
--instead of selling off residential holdings, like the 12-unit apartment building on West Micheltorena Street they sold in September, perhaps that could have been converted into appropriate housing.
--Take a leadership role in turning offices back into housing. Look around at how many physicians have established their offices in houses. Wouldn’t it make sense to free up those houses for housing once again?
This project may just be a good idea whose time has come and gone. We question how one neighborhood can absorb the profound impacts of dropping a subdivision into its midst.
Impacts of a new neighborhood are not interchangeable with the hospital impacts. The extraordinary density is nothing like the single-family homes and small development nearby--City has agreed with us that it’s important to keep the character of the neighborhood intact, and has even gone so far as to designate an historic design district to protect the quality of the neighborhood.
Think of the history of St. Francis, of Santa Barbara:
The good sisters managed to re-build the hospital after it was leveled by the 1925 earthquake--I spoke with Sr. Sylvianne who told me, “Don’t you let them knock down that building!” what do we owe those who came before? Walk around St. Francis and look at the tile plaques honoring prominent families who donated so much money to the St. Francis Foundation over the years.
Example of Alice Keck Park Memorial Garden, if civic leaders had their way, there would be two 9-story condominiums on the site right now. That story inspires me.
St. Francis site is not just a vacant plot of land--maybe the institution couldn’t be saved, but surely there’s an important community benefit to keeping the building that was built to last--whether by adaptive re-use for housing, or even another use as an institution that would continue to benefit the community--like an elder care facility, or even a boutique medical center, as has been proposed by some physicians in town.
Compare impacts of 115 units (81 workforce and 34 luxury) on a turn-of the century neighborhood vs. 55 units proposed for State Street Lofts project unanimously voted down on State Street, the city’s main thoroughfare.
Social impacts concerns:
--must leave when they’re no longer employed, raising all sorts of questions, from retirement issues to who gets the unit in event of a divorce, what if an employee dies and leaves family behind or becomes unable to work--does the family then have to move out?

Adaptive reuse already in town:
--Samarkand was built as a boy’s school (Boyland), then luxury hotel, then health-care facility, now retirement home
--The mortuary on State Street being converted into a real estate office. If people can work where there was once a crematorium, can’t they live in what was once a hospital.
--Mel’s Bar was carefully saved when Paseo Nuevo was built!

Historic issue:
--there is a conflict of interest resolution in place in Santa Barbara.
--historian hired by Cottage Development Team is married to a highly placed physician at Cottage Hospital.
--this information was not disclosed to the Historic Landmarks Commission, the City Historian or prior to the acceptance of the Historic Structures Report--I discovered it during my reading of the Draft EIR

Health issues:
--Recent meeting, Cottage introduced a UCLA physician, Dr. Philip Harber, who spoke authoritatively about the possible health effects, and said, quote, “They have a serious problem on their hands.” He continued to speak about concerns particularly to those who already have an identified health issue.
--We have many elderly and children in the neighborhood who have respiratory issues now, including my own son
Recycling issue:
What’s the energy cost of the recycling all that material, especially when you add in the loss of the embedded energy in the hospital building. Look at all the parking places that are already there--we’re going to rip that out and put in new?