B, another well researched and important piece! The problem is that no one is listening to your facts, Peter Rupert's facts or the opinion of every world class economist / pricing dynamics expert re: Rent Control. In fact, last weekend the Wall Street Journal (not something that most of the city council likely reads) had a great article: What the Twin Cities Tell Us About Fixing the Housing Crisis. The sub-headline said it all--St. Paul enacted rent controls, and housing construction plummeted. Next-door Minneapolis generated a downtown boom without regulating rent! Who are these people--some who pretend to be academics--that simply impose their limited world view on our once great city? The arrogance/hubris is unfathomable but, hey, they were elected so perhaps our electorate needs to look in the mirror rather than pointing fingers. Keep up the heat: )))!
The issue is not just rent control. It is who will soon replace term-limited Kristen Sneddon, Meghan Harmon, Oscar Gutierrez. Action, not hand wringing is the real order of the day.
We are stuck with newly elected Santamaria, who has been the main hot head on the topic, with heavy SEIU backing and assume direction, aka the Few Hundred Vote Wonder from the racially-protected Eastside district.
Pay attention also to SCOTUS rulings who may finally be abolishing our current race-based district elections that granted extraordinary powers to those who historically have won their seats earning only a total of a few hundred votes, but now form coalitions that defy the wishes of the majority of city voters.
Race-based district elections create artificial undemocratic elitism, at the price of constitutional protections for the whole.
Thank you for writing. The four rent control council will press the reluctant staff to re invent economics calling it "The Santa Barbara Way."
Feelings over Facts and data drive this myopic group of non owner, non business non sensical bunch.
State rent control exists now, but the "council clowns" want to kill housing ... to "save too low an income to live here" tenant by enacting an even lower rent control percentage.
The staff study will require investigating other rent control jurisdictions for best practices and recommend inflicting them on Santa Barbara.
I await their findings. Unless a new city council majority brings this ill-gotten scheme to a screeching halt.
In the mean time, an audit please of the goals, expectations and outcome facts that we know form the very large amounts of government controlled housing we already provide. A score card please.
Bonnie offers an excellent metric. Has this already generous program provided a stepping stone, or a permanent, multi-generational government protected hand out for the few.
Besides election year virtue signaling for votes, what are the real a specific outcomes from what has been an exemplary subsidized housing program in this city to date?
Thank you for writing on this very important topic. I think of course at the end of the day the taxpayer is always on the hook.
Especially if you put a ceiling on what a landlord can charge for their investment. In other words keep my profits down and make me pay more taxes to cover the city housing shortfall.
SF has mastered this model and now the city is stuck, nobody moving in and once you're in you can not move up.
The only landlords making any money in SF are none. It is just a tax hustle now.
I love the example quoted for Kris and agree that needs to happen but we need a better model that brings us together to help support those who need a hand on their back and yet does not knee cap housing development. If you want a builder developer to build here give them a pathway to profitability not substitutability. Lets look for better solutions with desired outcomes.
Some remedies to ease the affordability crisis might include a countywide transportation system. Ventura County has some great programs that cover the county. If coordinated with local bus schedules in SB, and with bikes available at drop off points it would far more feasible and less expensive than commuting in private cars. With WiFi available on the busses people could even get work done while commuting. City and County would have to plan and implement such a system jointly.
Santa Barbara is expensive, I’m afraid the reality is that not everyone who works here will be able to live here.
All new rental and housing units being built or built within the last several years are way more expensive than most. older units. That will not get better under the discussed rent stabilization ideas.
Respectfully, public transportation is just another failed bureaucracy kept functioning directly and indirectly by taxpayers. MTD never publishes their ridership numbers--because their operation is not financially sustainable without subsidies. The gigantic buses ride mostly empty of passengers and clog every intersection in town.
Mike MTD has to provide its numbers through SBCAG. The South County SBCAG committee has refused to cut the failure called MTD for political reasons. The High Density RHNA types that want Rent Control and Housing Authority Units are the reason. Then you get the transportation engineers who are for a feckless failure called Vision Zero that also panders to the failed compassionate group.
Lunna29: Private sector and government employers already provide transportation to desired, needed employees. Public MTD transportation has failed locally proving to be another taxpayer cost drain. No need for huge nearly empty busses on narrow impassable streets, when smaller less costly trollies would fill unmet local transportation needs. Suffice it to say, Santa Barbara is mismanaged by Council and bureaucrats. No hope until possibly 2027 after new financially literate reps are elected for D4,5,6. Mayor Rowse’s summation speech on Tuesday was excellent!
Another Great Article Bonnie…although the socialists may not know they are pulling US down the slippery slope of communism, Methinks rents (here + nationwide) will begin to decline rapidly soon after the first of the year, when Team Trump cuts off all food & housing subsidies for illegals…listen for a large sucking sound as remigration begins to accelerate…
PS, unfortunately, our ‘selected’ leaders don’t know the history of rent control programs…
“Economists are virtually unanimous in concluding that rent controls are destructive. In a 1990 poll of 464 economists published in the May 1992 issue of the American Economic Review, 93 percent of U.S. respondents agreed, either completely or with provisos, that “a ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available.”
DLD: there has been no SCOTUS ruling yet on Trump’s 7/2025 EO. Cases are working their way through judiciary. No cause for optimism. Reagan guaranteed rights for all to ER services which resulted in closure of some ERs as flu sick obtained free care in ERs. There will be grant funded NGO ways around Trump’s EO. Food Banks currently augment SNAP, reporting service to 1 in 3 residents.
Taxpayer-Funded Benefits Are for American Citizens — Not Illegals – The White House
I’m optimistic, since the DODE magic potion has been working the NGO pipelines as well…imagine AI assembling money flows, correspondence between government officials / NGO‘s (including family members of same G officials + those related to NGO’s)+++
likely could also assemble (sealed) indictments, including chapter and verse for all illegal monetary activities…
Did Ms Sneddon leave unsaid: ……”because I (Sneddon) grew up in subsidized housing and leveraged this into a quarter million dollar tax dollar funded government annual income stream for myself, everyone should be given this same outcome”…..?
Therefore we have a duty to take away all private property rights, so that everyone can leverage themselves into a nearly three-quarter million dollar annual family income thanks to tax payers*, using private property confiscation as our means to reach this goal.
How does that exactly work out, Ms Sneddon. Show us the math.
Exactly my thought: “the model worth replicating” that Bobbie described is an entire life — an exceptional, extraordinary elite life — like Kristin Sneddon at taxpayer expense. Has she no integrity, no humility?
Duplicate Sneddon’s life. Secure a government job whereby you get ‘ownership to your employment and lifetime pay’ until death. The Sneddon Family has mastered it. Wait until she’s Mayor!
Kristen Sneddon’s 2023 compensation SBCC $176,182 and City $100k for over a quarter of a million paid by taxpayers. Then there’s household income: her husband at the County of SB: $311,612. Data for 2024 has NOT been submitted by County or SBCC.
As landlords take the Ellis offramp from the regulatory nightmare of good intentions, how will those lost rental units be replaced? I can already hear the passionate pleas for expansion of the housing authority's portfolio of low income subsidized rental properties. The cycle of failure that is government solutions births more government solutions and the cycle of failure without accountability continues.
How many use government subsidized housing (that is the taxpayers money and the trolls that work there) as a off ramp to self sufficiency? The Housing Authority should have that record at a moments notice.
What has been the cost per unit when the HA started and what is the cost per unit today? How many are part of the pay structure?
The issue that the Santa Maria's, Sneddon's, and the Harmon's of this world don't seem to get it is dependency, like Crack is a very seductive item. Compassion that ends with destruction or walk away from housing is not Compassion, it is nothing less than Political BS posturing.
Santa Barbara is a location that will NEVER have enough land - resources - or money to let everyone who wants to live here own, let alone rent. So what to do?
The Sneddon's are a classic example of people with brains that want a Millionaire's life style and income but were unable to find it in the private sector. aka Government employees who depend on taking producers wealth, and a retirement system that is currently broke to live the high life.
Why do you think all but a Rowse are on the City Council? It is the pay and benefits. Why do you think the City Administrator works here? She is paid more than the Gov. of the State. Just keep going down down the list.
When the government employees are paid the same wage minus 10% of the private sector, and Council are paid $500 to cover monthly whatever (they have a staff) then you will see government pay is rational.
Rent control is a losers game. It cost far more then it is supposed to, and as a result will always fail. Compassion? Not even. Greed of course.
Scott: in addition to City and County Housing Authority data, there are thousands of privately owned tax subsidized housing units financed by HUD, CA Housing Finance Agency, CA Health Finance Agency, … These housing units are EXEMPT from property taxes and may or may not also benefit from Section 8 Certificates for resident occupants. Santa Barbara was reported to have highest per capita number of tax subsidized units in the nation.
If we are subsidizing blue collar trades people to live here, where is the list of subsidized skills workers we can hire for our mutual community benefit?
Where is the two-way street for our long history providing this huge local community benefit?
NW: Please research number of subsidized long term, lifetime local tenants are not citizens or even green card holders. Enforcement is lacking of existing immigration and lawful residency laws; rather both City and County of Santa Barbara fund directly and indirectly to attract, protect, and provide for more needy residents.
Read how the county board of supervisor now suddenly moan about all the “cuts” they are now facing, after how many decades of giving away illegal benefits?
And act like victims about the “mandates” they are still forced to fund first. Which happens to be all their county employee union permanent benefits, they agreed to fund first before any other local considerations.
Their lack of self awareness how they put county tax payers into this very no-win situation is appalling. This is the actuarial crunch time, long warned about, that they alone chose to ignore. All they do now is act like helpless victims……….due to their own misdeeds.
The most important point Bonnie made is: "Opportunity means making it possible for builders to build homes that even lower-income people can afford. As long as California continues an essentially “infill only” policy for new housing, true entry-level housing is impossible."
As an expert in housing I can tell you that the California and Santa Barbara County "infill only" policy for new housing is the root cause of our housing shortage.
By "Smart Growth" planners putting in place urban limit lines to prevent "sprawl" has caused all of the vacant land zoned for building housing to now be gone.
This lack of "supply" of vacant land zoned for housing has caused the price of lots to skyrocket and go from 10% of the total cost of a house to 70% of the cost of a house,
One can't find a vacant lot for less than $1,000,000 !
Urban Sprawl is actually the answer. It's actually not bad considering what it accomplishes: Lots and lots of cheap land for home builders to build cheap houses.
Also 99% of families much prefer the "American dream" of living in a little house with a white picket fence with its own yard as compared to living on the 4th story with no yard all. Stuffed in like chickens in a chicken factory! (google chicken factory and see).
Consider this fact: 100% of all developed land in American if put together will fit in the state of Washington! That a fact! This means there is vast untapped land available to subdivide new vacant lots that will cost $50,000 each instead of $1,000,000.
This solution alone completely solves our housing problem.
Whats environmentally wrong with creating "New towns" all across America and California? I propose a new town of 50,000 peopke half way between Santa Barbara and Santa Maria modeled after the new town "Sea Side" in Florida Google it and tell me if you would like to live there? I sure would!
Excellent article as usual, Bonnie! You raised most of the issues this Council, and City residents, are facing.
A couple of "costs" that you did not address are the rising costs of hazard insurance, property taxes, and utilities. All of these costs are borne by the landord/owner. With a moratorium on the rent that can be charged, these factors are almost guaranteed to increase, and without the ability to pass along these rising costs, the landlord's "profit", or operating margin, shrinks. This can lead to deferred maintenance and loss of real estate value. Some might react "greedy landlord's don't deserve their profit"; does that mean that needy tenants deserve lack of maintenance and functioning hardware/appliances? I see tenement housing on the horizon.
Another question I have is about Ms. Sneddon's comments about her own experience. Was her father Tom Sneddon, the City District Attorney? At what point in his life/career did his family reside in this housing? It may be worth $4 million currently, but is it still an affordable rental, or did a previous owner take his profit by selling and taking this out of the rental market? I can assure you that no owner of property acquired at this price would rent it out at an "affordable" rate.
And yes, the whole discussion comes down to the number of units available for rent, and any landlord's ability to exit the rolls and receive his capital gains, which you pointed out are taxed at a much higher rate than in the past.
Free market or government-controlled operations and decisions? The government's in Santa Barbara and this State are poor examples.
As always, Bonnie, a well investigated and well written commentary on how far down the slippery slope we have gone and no matter what well documented facts are shown to the folks in charge, they carry on furthering the mess that we are in. One of the worst feeling I have about this is how jaded I have become to people who "want to help others". I know there are people out there who have genuine aspirations to help their fellow man but at this point I do think that the majority in public office and a good portion of non profits are in for their own gain. It is truly sad that we have come so far in a negative direction. Not sure what the remedy is other than voting out the bad, firing the bad and hope for the best that the people that replace them are better.
The staff study will require investigating other rent control jurisdictions for best practices and recommend inflicting them on Santa Barbara.
I await their findings. Unless a new city council majority brings this ill-gotten scheme to a screeching halt.
In the mean time, an audit please of the goals, expectations and outcome facts that we know from the very large amounts of government controlled housing we already provide. A score card please.
How does our already generous housing subsidy program compare to surrounding jurisdictions. Have we become the only local magnet for these unlimited demands? Are other cities developing their own “fair share” that corresponds to their own work/housing needs? Where is the data first?
Bonnie offers an excellent metric. Has this already generous program provided a stepping stone, or a permanent, multi-generational government protected hand out for the few.
Besides election year virtue signaling for votes, what are the real, specific outcomes mindlessly expanding what has been already an exemplary subsidized housing program in this city to date?
Standard Operating Procedure for our SB govt: the upward mobility that matters most is their own salaries.
Or re-election...
B, another well researched and important piece! The problem is that no one is listening to your facts, Peter Rupert's facts or the opinion of every world class economist / pricing dynamics expert re: Rent Control. In fact, last weekend the Wall Street Journal (not something that most of the city council likely reads) had a great article: What the Twin Cities Tell Us About Fixing the Housing Crisis. The sub-headline said it all--St. Paul enacted rent controls, and housing construction plummeted. Next-door Minneapolis generated a downtown boom without regulating rent! Who are these people--some who pretend to be academics--that simply impose their limited world view on our once great city? The arrogance/hubris is unfathomable but, hey, they were elected so perhaps our electorate needs to look in the mirror rather than pointing fingers. Keep up the heat: )))!
" . . Who are these people ." Communist Democrats who haven't a clue what America is all about. Keep voting them in!
The issue is not just rent control. It is who will soon replace term-limited Kristen Sneddon, Meghan Harmon, Oscar Gutierrez. Action, not hand wringing is the real order of the day.
We are stuck with newly elected Santamaria, who has been the main hot head on the topic, with heavy SEIU backing and assume direction, aka the Few Hundred Vote Wonder from the racially-protected Eastside district.
Pay attention also to SCOTUS rulings who may finally be abolishing our current race-based district elections that granted extraordinary powers to those who historically have won their seats earning only a total of a few hundred votes, but now form coalitions that defy the wishes of the majority of city voters.
Race-based district elections create artificial undemocratic elitism, at the price of constitutional protections for the whole.
Thank you for writing. The four rent control council will press the reluctant staff to re invent economics calling it "The Santa Barbara Way."
Feelings over Facts and data drive this myopic group of non owner, non business non sensical bunch.
State rent control exists now, but the "council clowns" want to kill housing ... to "save too low an income to live here" tenant by enacting an even lower rent control percentage.
4 voted yes with an additional rep stating he would have voted yes IF …
Don't believe that, you can cruise the isles at TJ's on De la Vina and ask him yourself. He would have voted no, regardless.
Well said as usual Bonnie however I don’t believe there’s enough people left in city/county government that possess any common sense anymore
The staff study will require investigating other rent control jurisdictions for best practices and recommend inflicting them on Santa Barbara.
I await their findings. Unless a new city council majority brings this ill-gotten scheme to a screeching halt.
In the mean time, an audit please of the goals, expectations and outcome facts that we know form the very large amounts of government controlled housing we already provide. A score card please.
Bonnie offers an excellent metric. Has this already generous program provided a stepping stone, or a permanent, multi-generational government protected hand out for the few.
Besides election year virtue signaling for votes, what are the real a specific outcomes from what has been an exemplary subsidized housing program in this city to date?
Thank you for writing on this very important topic. I think of course at the end of the day the taxpayer is always on the hook.
Especially if you put a ceiling on what a landlord can charge for their investment. In other words keep my profits down and make me pay more taxes to cover the city housing shortfall.
SF has mastered this model and now the city is stuck, nobody moving in and once you're in you can not move up.
The only landlords making any money in SF are none. It is just a tax hustle now.
I love the example quoted for Kris and agree that needs to happen but we need a better model that brings us together to help support those who need a hand on their back and yet does not knee cap housing development. If you want a builder developer to build here give them a pathway to profitability not substitutability. Lets look for better solutions with desired outcomes.
Excellent post.
Some remedies to ease the affordability crisis might include a countywide transportation system. Ventura County has some great programs that cover the county. If coordinated with local bus schedules in SB, and with bikes available at drop off points it would far more feasible and less expensive than commuting in private cars. With WiFi available on the busses people could even get work done while commuting. City and County would have to plan and implement such a system jointly.
Santa Barbara is expensive, I’m afraid the reality is that not everyone who works here will be able to live here.
All new rental and housing units being built or built within the last several years are way more expensive than most. older units. That will not get better under the discussed rent stabilization ideas.
Respectfully, public transportation is just another failed bureaucracy kept functioning directly and indirectly by taxpayers. MTD never publishes their ridership numbers--because their operation is not financially sustainable without subsidies. The gigantic buses ride mostly empty of passengers and clog every intersection in town.
Global warming oh my
Mike MTD has to provide its numbers through SBCAG. The South County SBCAG committee has refused to cut the failure called MTD for political reasons. The High Density RHNA types that want Rent Control and Housing Authority Units are the reason. Then you get the transportation engineers who are for a feckless failure called Vision Zero that also panders to the failed compassionate group.
Thanks for that observation.
Cars Are Basic, Inc. Drop us a line.
Lunna29: Private sector and government employers already provide transportation to desired, needed employees. Public MTD transportation has failed locally proving to be another taxpayer cost drain. No need for huge nearly empty busses on narrow impassable streets, when smaller less costly trollies would fill unmet local transportation needs. Suffice it to say, Santa Barbara is mismanaged by Council and bureaucrats. No hope until possibly 2027 after new financially literate reps are elected for D4,5,6. Mayor Rowse’s summation speech on Tuesday was excellent!
Another Great Article Bonnie…although the socialists may not know they are pulling US down the slippery slope of communism, Methinks rents (here + nationwide) will begin to decline rapidly soon after the first of the year, when Team Trump cuts off all food & housing subsidies for illegals…listen for a large sucking sound as remigration begins to accelerate…
PS, unfortunately, our ‘selected’ leaders don’t know the history of rent control programs…
“Economists are virtually unanimous in concluding that rent controls are destructive. In a 1990 poll of 464 economists published in the May 1992 issue of the American Economic Review, 93 percent of U.S. respondents agreed, either completely or with provisos, that “a ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available.”
https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentControl.html
DLD: there has been no SCOTUS ruling yet on Trump’s 7/2025 EO. Cases are working their way through judiciary. No cause for optimism. Reagan guaranteed rights for all to ER services which resulted in closure of some ERs as flu sick obtained free care in ERs. There will be grant funded NGO ways around Trump’s EO. Food Banks currently augment SNAP, reporting service to 1 in 3 residents.
Taxpayer-Funded Benefits Are for American Citizens — Not Illegals – The White House
https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/07/taxpayer-funded-benefits-are-for-american-citizens-not-illegals/
I’m optimistic, since the DODE magic potion has been working the NGO pipelines as well…imagine AI assembling money flows, correspondence between government officials / NGO‘s (including family members of same G officials + those related to NGO’s)+++
likely could also assemble (sealed) indictments, including chapter and verse for all illegal monetary activities…
Did Ms Sneddon leave unsaid: ……”because I (Sneddon) grew up in subsidized housing and leveraged this into a quarter million dollar tax dollar funded government annual income stream for myself, everyone should be given this same outcome”…..?
Therefore we have a duty to take away all private property rights, so that everyone can leverage themselves into a nearly three-quarter million dollar annual family income thanks to tax payers*, using private property confiscation as our means to reach this goal.
How does that exactly work out, Ms Sneddon. Show us the math.
* Source: Transparent California
Exactly my thought: “the model worth replicating” that Bobbie described is an entire life — an exceptional, extraordinary elite life — like Kristin Sneddon at taxpayer expense. Has she no integrity, no humility?
Duplicate Sneddon’s life. Secure a government job whereby you get ‘ownership to your employment and lifetime pay’ until death. The Sneddon Family has mastered it. Wait until she’s Mayor!
Kristen Sneddon’s 2023 compensation SBCC $176,182 and City $100k for over a quarter of a million paid by taxpayers. Then there’s household income: her husband at the County of SB: $311,612. Data for 2024 has NOT been submitted by County or SBCC.
Source: CaliforniaTransparent.com
As landlords take the Ellis offramp from the regulatory nightmare of good intentions, how will those lost rental units be replaced? I can already hear the passionate pleas for expansion of the housing authority's portfolio of low income subsidized rental properties. The cycle of failure that is government solutions births more government solutions and the cycle of failure without accountability continues.
How many use government subsidized housing (that is the taxpayers money and the trolls that work there) as a off ramp to self sufficiency? The Housing Authority should have that record at a moments notice.
What has been the cost per unit when the HA started and what is the cost per unit today? How many are part of the pay structure?
The issue that the Santa Maria's, Sneddon's, and the Harmon's of this world don't seem to get it is dependency, like Crack is a very seductive item. Compassion that ends with destruction or walk away from housing is not Compassion, it is nothing less than Political BS posturing.
Santa Barbara is a location that will NEVER have enough land - resources - or money to let everyone who wants to live here own, let alone rent. So what to do?
The Sneddon's are a classic example of people with brains that want a Millionaire's life style and income but were unable to find it in the private sector. aka Government employees who depend on taking producers wealth, and a retirement system that is currently broke to live the high life.
Why do you think all but a Rowse are on the City Council? It is the pay and benefits. Why do you think the City Administrator works here? She is paid more than the Gov. of the State. Just keep going down down the list.
When the government employees are paid the same wage minus 10% of the private sector, and Council are paid $500 to cover monthly whatever (they have a staff) then you will see government pay is rational.
Rent control is a losers game. It cost far more then it is supposed to, and as a result will always fail. Compassion? Not even. Greed of course.
Thanks Bonnie
Scott: in addition to City and County Housing Authority data, there are thousands of privately owned tax subsidized housing units financed by HUD, CA Housing Finance Agency, CA Health Finance Agency, … These housing units are EXEMPT from property taxes and may or may not also benefit from Section 8 Certificates for resident occupants. Santa Barbara was reported to have highest per capita number of tax subsidized units in the nation.
If we are subsidizing blue collar trades people to live here, where is the list of subsidized skills workers we can hire for our mutual community benefit?
Where is the two-way street for our long history providing this huge local community benefit?
Left out of this article is the real reason most are on welfare & STAY on it: drug & alcohol addiction.
NW: Please research number of subsidized long term, lifetime local tenants are not citizens or even green card holders. Enforcement is lacking of existing immigration and lawful residency laws; rather both City and County of Santa Barbara fund directly and indirectly to attract, protect, and provide for more needy residents.
Read how the county board of supervisor now suddenly moan about all the “cuts” they are now facing, after how many decades of giving away illegal benefits?
And act like victims about the “mandates” they are still forced to fund first. Which happens to be all their county employee union permanent benefits, they agreed to fund first before any other local considerations.
Their lack of self awareness how they put county tax payers into this very no-win situation is appalling. This is the actuarial crunch time, long warned about, that they alone chose to ignore. All they do now is act like helpless victims……….due to their own misdeeds.
!!!
. . . and stupid enough to keep shooting up.
The most important point Bonnie made is: "Opportunity means making it possible for builders to build homes that even lower-income people can afford. As long as California continues an essentially “infill only” policy for new housing, true entry-level housing is impossible."
As an expert in housing I can tell you that the California and Santa Barbara County "infill only" policy for new housing is the root cause of our housing shortage.
By "Smart Growth" planners putting in place urban limit lines to prevent "sprawl" has caused all of the vacant land zoned for building housing to now be gone.
This lack of "supply" of vacant land zoned for housing has caused the price of lots to skyrocket and go from 10% of the total cost of a house to 70% of the cost of a house,
One can't find a vacant lot for less than $1,000,000 !
Urban Sprawl is actually the answer. It's actually not bad considering what it accomplishes: Lots and lots of cheap land for home builders to build cheap houses.
Also 99% of families much prefer the "American dream" of living in a little house with a white picket fence with its own yard as compared to living on the 4th story with no yard all. Stuffed in like chickens in a chicken factory! (google chicken factory and see).
Consider this fact: 100% of all developed land in American if put together will fit in the state of Washington! That a fact! This means there is vast untapped land available to subdivide new vacant lots that will cost $50,000 each instead of $1,000,000.
This solution alone completely solves our housing problem.
Whats environmentally wrong with creating "New towns" all across America and California? I propose a new town of 50,000 peopke half way between Santa Barbara and Santa Maria modeled after the new town "Sea Side" in Florida Google it and tell me if you would like to live there? I sure would!
Excellent article as usual, Bonnie! You raised most of the issues this Council, and City residents, are facing.
A couple of "costs" that you did not address are the rising costs of hazard insurance, property taxes, and utilities. All of these costs are borne by the landord/owner. With a moratorium on the rent that can be charged, these factors are almost guaranteed to increase, and without the ability to pass along these rising costs, the landlord's "profit", or operating margin, shrinks. This can lead to deferred maintenance and loss of real estate value. Some might react "greedy landlord's don't deserve their profit"; does that mean that needy tenants deserve lack of maintenance and functioning hardware/appliances? I see tenement housing on the horizon.
Another question I have is about Ms. Sneddon's comments about her own experience. Was her father Tom Sneddon, the City District Attorney? At what point in his life/career did his family reside in this housing? It may be worth $4 million currently, but is it still an affordable rental, or did a previous owner take his profit by selling and taking this out of the rental market? I can assure you that no owner of property acquired at this price would rent it out at an "affordable" rate.
And yes, the whole discussion comes down to the number of units available for rent, and any landlord's ability to exit the rolls and receive his capital gains, which you pointed out are taxed at a much higher rate than in the past.
Free market or government-controlled operations and decisions? The government's in Santa Barbara and this State are poor examples.
John Richards
Democrats game plan:
1. Identify the victims ….tenants
2. Identify the oppressor…..the landlords
Run up the body counts on the score board.
John, read my column from Friday the 12th and Tuesday of this week...
As always, Bonnie, a well investigated and well written commentary on how far down the slippery slope we have gone and no matter what well documented facts are shown to the folks in charge, they carry on furthering the mess that we are in. One of the worst feeling I have about this is how jaded I have become to people who "want to help others". I know there are people out there who have genuine aspirations to help their fellow man but at this point I do think that the majority in public office and a good portion of non profits are in for their own gain. It is truly sad that we have come so far in a negative direction. Not sure what the remedy is other than voting out the bad, firing the bad and hope for the best that the people that replace them are better.
The staff study will require investigating other rent control jurisdictions for best practices and recommend inflicting them on Santa Barbara.
I await their findings. Unless a new city council majority brings this ill-gotten scheme to a screeching halt.
In the mean time, an audit please of the goals, expectations and outcome facts that we know from the very large amounts of government controlled housing we already provide. A score card please.
How does our already generous housing subsidy program compare to surrounding jurisdictions. Have we become the only local magnet for these unlimited demands? Are other cities developing their own “fair share” that corresponds to their own work/housing needs? Where is the data first?
Bonnie offers an excellent metric. Has this already generous program provided a stepping stone, or a permanent, multi-generational government protected hand out for the few.
Besides election year virtue signaling for votes, what are the real, specific outcomes mindlessly expanding what has been already an exemplary subsidized housing program in this city to date?
Santa Barbara has the highest number of subsidized housing units per capita in the country. Where is the basis for comparison? There’s is none.
When will there be ‘enough subsidized units’? Never.