The Franceschi House, Public Trust, and Santa Barbara’s Double Standard City Hall has barely reopened.
After shutting down for the Christmas and New Year’s break — with operations limited largely to what the City classifies as “essential workers” — Santa Barbara immediately returned to its every-other-Friday closure schedule. Add in the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, and City offices went dark yet again.
When a holiday falls on a Monday, City Council meetings are cancelled outright. The practical effect is a paid holiday for Councilmembers — and one less public meeting on the calendar.
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A look at the February calendar shows the same pattern repeating: another Monday holiday, another every-other-Friday closure, another four-day weekend, and once again, a cancelled City Council meeting.
The result is not just time off. It is fewer public meetings, fewer opportunities for residents to engage, and fewer moments when major policy decisions are debated in the open.
So, while City Hall cycles through closures and canceled meetings, we’ll use the quiet to look closely at what does not pause at all: how public assets are managed, how public trust is honored, and how rules are enforced differently depending on who owns the property.
Which brings us to the Franceschi House — and why its story matters now more than ever.
For nearly a century, the Franceschi House — also known as Montarioso — has stood as a symbol of Santa Barbara’s early Riviera history, its horticultural ambition, and its civic generosity. It was among the earliest of the homes built on the hill, part of Dr. Francesco Franceschi’s vision for the city’s future. Later, Alden Freeman purchased the property, transformed it, and in 1931 conveyed it not as disposable real estate, but as a gift for the benefit of the inhabitants of Santa Barbara.
That Distinction Matters.
The Franceschi property was not intended to be treated like an ordinary City asset — something to be neglected, written off, or erased when inconvenient. It was left in trust for the public, an obligation that residents have repeatedly had to remind City Hall of whenever demolition was proposed.
Over the decades, preservationists, donors, and community members have stepped in repeatedly to defend that original intent. Each time, the same justification emerges: the building is too deteriorated, too expensive, too difficult to maintain.
Recently obtained City records tell a very different story.
What the City Says It Can — and Cannot — Document
In response to a Public Records Act Request, the City acknowledges a significant limitation in its own recordkeeping.
Parks and Recreation stated that it does not have records of upgrades to the caretaker house; it further explained that it does not track operating expenses by location. As a result, the department cannot produce a comprehensive accounting of what was spent at Franceschi Park prior to the period it was able to extract.
Instead, Public Works Facilities was only able to extract expense records incurred at Franceschi Park since 2014. In the City’s own words, “Most of the expenses they’ve incurred were at the caretaker house, but some were in other park locations, particularly at the park restroom.”
That clarification is critical.
The absence of earlier records does not mean money was not spent. It means the City did not track or retain those records in a way that allows public review today. Fragmented accounting should not be confused with fiscal restraint.
What is available, however, is more than enough to establish a clear pattern.
What the Available Records Show
From 2013/2014 through January 2024, the City produced a detailed work-order ledger showing 100 separate maintenance and repair actions at Franceschi Park.
These records document continuous spending — year after year — primarily at the caretaker cottage, which remained occupied and actively maintained. The work performed mirrors the same habitability standards the City enforces on private landlords:
Sewer backups and water main breaks
Plumbing failures and leaking fixtures
Electrical outlets, meters, lighting, and thermostats
Interior painting, flooring, and appliance hookups
Porch, gate, and exterior repairs
Pest and rodent abatement
Graffiti removal
Restroom maintenance
Security lighting and police radio infrastructure
Several work orders explicitly reference coordinating access with the resident caretaker and preparing the residence for continued or new occupancy. This was not an abandoned structure quietly falling apart. It was a City-owned residential unit being maintained — often reactively, sometimes repeatedly — over more than a decade.
And again, the City itself confirms that most of the spending was focused on the caretaker house.
Capital Spending the City Does Track
In addition to ongoing maintenance, the City confirmed nearly $484,000 in capital improvement spending at Franceschi Park since 1990:
2007: Roadway, parking lot, and drainage improvements totaling $397,772.13, largely funded by a State Parks grant
2017: Drainage improvements and a roof replacement on the historic Franceschi House itself, totaling $86,165.58
The 2017 roof replacement is especially notable. Even as City officials now argue the building is beyond saving, they were still investing in major structural elements less than a decade ago.
A City-Designated Structure of Merit — Left to Deteriorate by the City
Compounding the contradiction is the fact that the Franceschi House was formally designated by the City of Santa Barbara as a “Structure of Merit.”
That designation is not symbolic. It is a recognition by the City itself that a property has historical, architectural, or cultural significance worthy of preservation and special consideration.
In other words, the City officially acknowledged that Franceschi House mattered.
Yet after granting that designation, the City failed to provide the consistent stewardship and long-term maintenance such recognition logically requires. Responsibility for deterioration was allowed to accumulate quietly — until the resulting condition could be cited as justification for removal.
A private property owner who allowed a designated historic structure to deteriorate (“demolition by neglect”) would face enforcement actions, penalties, and potentially loss of approvals. The City, by contrast, now points to the condition it oversaw as evidence that preservation is no longer feasible.
The same government that conferred historic recognition now uses the consequences of its own inaction to argue for demolition.
When “We Can’t Afford It” Is an Option — But Only for City Hall
There is an argument the City regularly makes regarding Franceschi House: that long-term maintenance or restoration is simply unaffordable.
That defense is never available to private property owners.
Under Santa Barbara’s code-enforcement regime, owners of rental housing are legally required to maintain their buildings regardless of cost. The City does not ask whether an owner can afford a roof replacement, sewer repair, or structural fix. It issues a notice. Failure to comply results in penalties.
The City does not offer hardship waivers. It does not allow maintenance to be deferred because repairs are “too expensive.” And under the City’s expanding rent-control framework, owners are often prohibited from recovering the full cost of those repairs through rent — even when those costs are driven by City-imposed fees, utility increases, or regulatory mandates.
Yet when the City itself faces the consequences of deferred maintenance, the conclusion is entirely different. Cost becomes the justification not for compliance, but for abandonment.
At Franceschi, the City’s position is not that maintenance is required and must be done — it is that maintenance is optional, preservation is discretionary, and demolition becomes acceptable once costs are inconvenient.
That is not a difference in circumstance. It is a difference in standards.
Selective Preservation Is a Pattern
This brings the Franceschi debate into sharper focus.
Santa Barbara routinely allows its own buildings to deteriorate — and then finds the money to restore them:
The Carrillo Recreation Center underwent a renovation costing more than $6 million
The Cabrillo Arts Pavilion was restored at a cost approaching $20 million
The Plaza del Mar Band Shell received over $1 million in combined City, ARPA, and grant funding
In each case, deferred maintenance justified investment, not demolition.
At Franceschi, however, deterioration — much of it occurring under City stewardship — is now cited as proof that preservation is impractical.
When the Double Standard Becomes Policy
This contradiction is now embedded directly into Santa Barbara’s rent-stabilization and tenant-protection framework. Private housing providers are treated as guarantors of perfect compliance — regardless of expense — while the City treats itself as exempt from the same expectation.
Franceschi House exposes that disparity in concrete terms: when the City cannot afford maintenance, it calls it inevitability; when a private owner cannot afford maintenance, it calls it a violation.
The Question the City Still Avoids
The Franceschi House was left for the benefit of the inhabitants of Santa Barbara, with deed restrictions requiring public use and directing that resources be reinvested into the site. Those restrictions cannot be voided by Council vote.
Yet nearly a century later, residents are still being told demolition is the only reasonable outcome.
When the City Gets Time — and Landlords Get Enforcement
The contrast becomes unavoidable when you look at who is driving today’s housing policy. In 2018, Kristen Sneddon voted with the City Council to demolish the Franceschi House — a City-designated Structure of Merit — because restoring it was deemed too expensive. The building still stands today not because the City changed its mind, but because demolition requires years of studies, process, and procedural steps the City affords itself. Private owners get no such grace period. Today, Sneddon is pushing rent stabilization, a mandatory rent registry projected to cost taxpayers roughly $6 million per year, and rent caps set at 60% of CPI — policies that demand private landlords maintain properties immediately, absorb rising costs now, and limit their ability to adjust rents at all. The City can vote to demolish a historic public asset and take years to follow through. Private owners must pay now, comply now, and are told not to raise rents. That is not housing policy — it is a one-way enforcement regime where the City gives itself time and flexibility and gives private housing providers penalties and prohibitions.
If the City can afford $6 million a year to police the private rental market, why couldn’t that money have been used to save our Structure of Merit — the second house ever built on the Riviera?
City Hall’s own records show a history of favoritism–towards itself
The city’s records show a decades-long history of selective maintenance, fragmented accounting, and strategic neglect — followed by a claim of inevitability.
Which raises a simple, unavoidable question:
If deferred maintenance on City property justifies millions in future capital spending, why is deferred maintenance on private housing treated as a violation — while cost recovery is capped by law?
The Franceschi House is no longer just a preservation debate. It is a case study in how rules change depending on who owns the building.
And the inhabitants of Santa Barbara — on whose behalf this property was originally given — deserve a clear answer.
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I am sure the Modoc road narrowing/bike lane project could have easily funded restoration of Franceschi house. Perhaps the City Council will instead raze the structure and build a homeless shelter, low income housing or a solar battery backup facility. It is not a matter of money but rather of vision and priorities.
Deferring maintenance is the oldest trick in the local government playbook: starve infrastructure for years, let buildings visibly crumble, then roll out the horror stories “unsafe classrooms! leaking roofs! mold everywhere!” They use it to scare voters into approving massive bonds. Santa Barbara City College ran this playbook to perfection with Measure P. Zero meaningful spending on upkeep, maximum drama on the ballot and at board meetings. Calculated extortion dressed up as urgency. Voters pay the bill multiple times through years of deterioration and again at the ballot box. Then they use the bond money for other purposes.