The thing I never understand about Santa Barbara (and I've had family here since 1961j is why anyone thinks it should be affordable now. When I got out of UCSB I wanted to stay here but there were no jobs and it was too expensive. So I went where I could get a small apartment and start my life. I always hoped/planned to come back. But I didn't insist that SB cater to my needs. All the kids I grew up with had to do likewise except my friends from ranching families who stayed to work on the family biz. That was 1974. Paradisiacal resort towns aren't supposed to be affordable for everyone. When you go to Lake Como or St. Bart's for a week do you rant against the expensive housing? Of course not. This is a resort town the elected idiots are intent on turning into an ugly place where they can rig votes but no tourist wants to spend money because it looks like the dumpville they already live in. In a few more years of this, stars like Selena Gomez won't be choosing Santa Barbara to spend millions on to get a photo shoot wedding.
‘Affordable’ housing needs a MAJOR REFOCUS toward current homeowners and landlords. Financial loads at every turn are UNAFFORDABLE: insurance; taxes + eye-popping add ons of bonds/fees; maintenance; repairs; code compliance. Total loss from earthquake or fire is a major risk that haunts every property owner in this town.
Case in point for one rental condo unit: water, sewer, garbage and maintenance costs went up $1200 a year and annual condo unit property insurance went up $800 a year, 8 unit condo complex insurance went up $1200 this year, along with annual property taxes on the condo unit that also go up incrementally every year. Fixed costs per unit.
Treading water is the best any landlord can now expect to get from making their housing unit available. Is this worth the on-going tenant grief in this current system, totally stacked against the landlord? Where one bad tenant can destroy any building maintenance reserves in a single case, by one obstructionist tenant. Earthquake insurance totally unaffordable agree forget it but every property owner is haunted daily not knowing when or if all will be lost with no compensation.
Landlords live daily with threats of loss, while tenants demand to be relieved from any and all risks and burdens of actual property ownership. New roofs, termites, water/sewer pipe bursts, routine painting, dry rot maintenance, floor coverings, property taxes, bond issues and parcel tax increases.
Add to that rental unit appliance replacements that come up from time to time: washing machine/ drier, stove, refrigerator, dishwater garbage disposal, water heater. Landlords are now being asked to fully subsidize these replacements as well and not recoup these costs in higher rents, if they exceed this draconian rent control limit. While the free market has many begging, hoping and waiting for a rental unit to show up on the open market. The subsidized tenant gets to laugh all the way to the bank.
Rent control is the government taking of private property, with no just fair compensation. It is an unearned subsidy by the lucky few, in exchange fo no community benefit for the whole. You cannot maintain a healthy community when only a few abritrarily benefit at the expense of the rest of the community.
Rent control, particularly in this community, is 100% misguided, patently unfair, dangerous and will serve as a death knell to the community at large.
Don't worry. When all the smaller landlords decide to sell, Black_rock will be right there to buy them up and leave them vacant so that they can manipulate the market while the houses die from lack of use. The City will oversee the water and electric grid, Black_rock will oversee housing, Gates our food supply, the pharmaceutical and healthcare insurance companies our healthcare, and we will live happily ever after...for a day or two.
Voters will need to accept they did this to themselves. Small former rentals right in the prime downtown area are now being offered for their STR opportunities, in their sales listings.
It would be nice to have more seasoned adults on city council who have wider life and business experiences. Not just demanding one-dimensional ideologues beholden only to Left and city employee unions. Voters have had other choices, but they were rejected in favor of the local Democrat machine.
We can also thank the leading political opinion leader for this area - the SB Independent - and its line-up of radical leftist opinion writers. Though props to Josh Molina recently who did appeal to tone down the violence inducing partisan rhetoric from the astro-turf local activists and former pols.
Thanks well as the bratty ex-NewsPress writers who got fired for refusing to carry out the new SB New Press owner's revival of the paper, and then who danced on the former SB NewsPress's grave when their boycott and social isolation of N-P subscribers was finally complete. Only to be now replaced with an even more radical local coverage as projected by the new owners of the former SB NewsPress logo.
We remain in a news desert locally, but this is what local readers demand and support. The rest follows suit.
Housing is not a right. It is a commodity. It is a product that is bought and sold.
If you cannot afford this commodity in Santa Barbara, you have no right to demand someone else pays you to not commute to an area where you can afford the housing. End of discussion.
Voracious free housing activists in fact are demanding they have a right not to commute. Not buying what they are selling.
The problem today is greedy tenants; not "gouging landlords". Tenants demanding superior rights over property owners become professional squatters who freeze out the natural market forces who choose to and can afford to live in Santa Barbara.
Every property in Santa Barbara will be negatively affected by this unending confiscation of private property, requiring a wholesale revaluation of all current property tax rates.
I wonder how the State, County, and City will respond when property values start declining and everyone requests adjustments to their property taxes accordingly?
Government pensions have built escalator clauses - defined benefit pensions - which is where the real hurt will soon come because the state Supreme Court already ruled they must be paid in full. Even when local tax resources have been tapped out.
Who will be left to pay retired government employees what they now have an unmodifiable amount to receive for the rest of their life, but was never fully funded upfront?
Which city council members (past or present) or county supervisors (past or present) have shown even a cursory interest in this looming local taxation doom cycle?
Mostly true, but one of the market forces that makes housing expensive here is zoning and various building codes. The supply is artificially restricted by the government.
Santa Barbara used to be special in no small part because of zoning. It has restricted out of control irresponsible development (I am a developer). Yes, the consequence is the cost of housing.Some are willing to pay the premium...some are not. Where is it written that anybody has an entitlement to live in Santa Barbara? Like Polly I made the decision to stay here after college even though I knew affordability was a big issue and was willing to make that trade off for a quality of life that is now washing down the toilet thanks to the socialist make up of the Santa Barbara City Council.
I have moved all but one real estate investment out of the state…To a place that I call "America"...Utah and Idaho. The remaining property has leases coming due in the next 60 to 90 days. I will be significantly cranking up those rents...not because I want to charge more...but because I need to protect my investment from these communists going forward. I am not alone in that regard.
Should not basic test on economics and markets be required for City Council members as a requisite to hold office? Sneddon, SantaMaria, et., are your listening?
LibProf: Wrong. Very little in this city is zoned R-1. Nor do zoning restrictions even matter any longer. Lax zoning enforcement also continues to keep the supply of illegal second units in high supply.
The supply is "restricted" because there is so little turn-over, once here and once in government subsidized hosing no one leaves. So of course the inventory is restricted. Including what happens to insider turnover to next generational occupancy in public housing?
Claiming zoning and building codes restrict supply is an old wives tale for this particular area. There is an insatiable pipeline feeding demand to live here, many coming from the 5000 or so recent UCSB graduates every single year who do not want to leave.
The only housing that has turnover is housing for seniors who at least conveniently die and provide new vacancies. The rest dig in and that is the end of the supply chain.
Please update your housing supply arguments and make them pertinent to this particular area with its unique housing demands, Lib Prof Your arguments do not sound in fact nor real life experience.
If zoning regulations don't matter anymore, I supposed you'd be okay to get rid of them entirely?
There's literally an entire subfield of economics that shows that zoning and other regulations are responsible for high housing prices. It's not an old wive's tale for here or any other area. Anything that restricts supply is going to increase prices, given the same level of demand.
Get out of your ivory tower LibProf, and drill down to this singular unique community and the pressures it alone faces that will not show up in any generic "studies".
Local forces is the only source for any local planning projections, not data from "regular housing markets". Please, do you not know why this community is singular? We are done with "experts" or tax-payer funded academia, telling us to do with our future. They have been so spectacularly wrong on so many issues, that have driven disastrous public policy of late.
Santa Barbara is not a special snowflake, nor is it an alternate dimension where the laws of economics don’t apply.
I am literally arguing for the most pro-libertarian, private-property position imaginable. Get the government out of the way and let the market respond to demand. You are arguing for restrictive government regulation.
Santa Barbara is a special snowflake. It is land-locked between mountains and sea. It has low to zero housing-turnover rate and a conveyor belt of new housing demands every year, primarily from the UCSB machine.
I support limited government, which does include zoning. I do not trust my "fellow man" to do the right thing so I do want a community to color within the lines. It is who has been drawing the lines and for what reasons, that has changed and not for the long term health of this community, that concerns me the most.
I do believe the city does need to get out of the housing market. They have exemplary accomplishments today and can now rest on their laurels. It is time to let market forces play more of a role, which one would hope would be private property ownership and not institutional ownership.
That may be the next tweak that takes a responsible city government to tackle, once all this current screaming settles down and we can get out of district elections and back to elected officials viewing the city as whole again.
I agree with you - more institutional ownership - a direct result of recent city utopian micromanagement - is as much of a community death knell and a bleak future for total government control that may well be the alternate outcome too.
Who on city council is paying attention to (1) lessening private property controls and (2) limited institutional housing ownership? Who can hold two contradictory thoughts in their brain at the same time?
Also unique to Santa Barbara is the impact of Prop 13 transfers of the "family home" to more and more second/third generation out of town owners who become long-distance landlords and do not even vote in local elections?
I remain fond of the original Founders who wanted only resident property owners to be voters. So toss in Prop 13 reform and limit the transfers of inherited family properties if the new owner/owners are not residents in that property.
I agree with much of what you are saying. But I would encourage you to visit Zillow and do a quick search for home sales - especially during and immediately following COVID. There is turn over in our area because people "pump" the market by buying and flipping homes. I have been stunned when I do these searches on Zillow in the SB area!
LC: What drove these owners to dump their properties, and be done with this micro-managed one party town, now running seriously into red ink? Don't just blame the exploitive property buyers. Local and state legislation set this up to work exactly this way.
When a city council is swayed because noisy activists show up and bully them into voting for anti-private property ordinances, why should this work out any other way?
What motivated the sellers? This ever-expanding rent control and aggressive tenants rights legislation is driving many a long time mom and pop rental property owner to take the money and run.
To be clear, I was not blaming the mom and pop sellers, or those that have been local for a reasonable duration and decide to get out because things have "gone south". I don't think I suggested that. I just know that there is a faction of outsiders (or those who don't really care about SB they way those who have known it for decades do) who know that SB is desirable property (or has been historically). So they snatch some up, do a lipstick-on-a-pig job and then take their $250-500k+ and move on. And that is unfortunately desirable from a property tax revenue standpoint and real estate agent perspective because they all make money off of it. In the meantime, market costs just continue to skyrocket. Just ask Ellen and Porsche! Ugh.
City currently has vast numbers of low income and very low income housing units:
1. Santa Barbara Housing Authority properties in vast numbers all over the city
2. Inclusionary housing mandates in all new private development properties, or in lieu fees
3. Charitable housing units for targeted low income persons
4. Vast numbers of converted motel properties now serving only low income residents
5. Constant loss of of property tax paying properties to non-profit housing organizations
6. ADUs now permanently eliminating prior residential zoning controls
7. Uncounted number of illegal second units all over this city, materially impacting resources
8. Builder's remedy now inserting 5-7 story buildings in R-4 downtown areas
9. Federal Section 8 housing
And now greedy housing activists demand all rental property also becomes mandated "affordable" housing on their terms only. What will be left of the private property ownership necessary to sustain a healthy and mixed economy in this town?
Rent-control means virtually all housing in this town is now under 100% government control.
Opinion: Santa Barbara’s New Rent-Control Push Will Hurt the Very People It Claims to Help
By EnoughIsEnough805
Santa Barbara’s City Council is once again flirting with a policy that sounds compassionate but will ultimately deepen our housing crisis. On October 14, Councilmembers Kristen Sneddon and Wendy Santamaria plan to introduce a new rent-control ordinance capping annual rent increases at just 60 percent of the Consumer Price Index—a formula that would limit rent hikes this year to a mere 1.62 percent.
At first glance, that may seem fair. But let’s be honest: when utilities, insurance, and basic maintenance costs have all risen far faster than inflation, a 1.6 percent limit is not “stability”—it’s financial suffocation. Property owners large and small would be forced to subsidize the city’s housing policy out of their own pockets.
California already limits rent increases through state law (AB 1482), which caps them at 5 percent plus CPI, or 10 percent total—a framework designed to balance tenant protection and property rights. Santa Barbara’s proposed rule would go far beyond that and push us into legally and economically dangerous territory. It would make landlords petition a government board simply to cover expenses—an approach that sounds more like bureaucratic micromanagement than sound housing policy.
The likely results are predictable because we’ve seen them before:
Fewer rentals, as owners sell or convert to short-term uses.
Less new housing, as developers flee a market that punishes investment.
Falling property values, shrinking our tax base and hurting city services.
Higher rents, ironically, as scarcity deepens and demand outpaces supply.
Rent control may feel good politically, but it has never solved a housing shortage. It simply freezes the problem in place while discouraging anyone from building or maintaining the homes we desperately need.
If the Council truly wants affordability, it should focus on incentivizing new housing, cutting red tape, and enforcing existing state laws fairly, not layering on new restrictions that will backfire. Santa Barbara deserves thoughtful solutions—not populist experiments that punish those who provide housing in the first place.
Let your voice be heard before this misguided policy gains traction. Contact the Council and tell them rent control isn’t compassion—it’s control.
The bottom line: More rent control will not solve our housing challenges—it will make them worse. The only way to stop this is for Council to hear directly from you!
There is nothing compassionate forcing others to pay people to live in areas they cannot afford , nor being able to meaningfully fund the necessary tax base required that support life in this area.
This city already has vast numbers of subsidized housing units. Rent-control simply adds thousands more subsidized units to this already very generous local "affordable" housing market distortion. There is a tipping point after which a community simply dies.
Is this an April Fool’s Day joke? So what fiduciary will allow any client, institutional or otherwise, to invest in Anything that is capped annually at a 2/3rds of CPI Gross, before costs?? Doing so Will clearly lead to a legal dumpster for anyone involved. This is an outrageous example of economic ignorance proposed by politicians, who have already destroyed what was once a beautiful commerce area, and now are marching rental property into a sadly sorry world of filthy cheap and loathsome rental ‘projects’, that typically spawn unhealthy, crime-ridden conditions into the community. This is the closest attempt that small-minded, power-fevered politicians in the U.S. have come to copying what Fidel did to Havana! Capping returns on housing incentivizes rodents. ( btw, have they fixed and sanitized the water fountains in front of New York Pizza and Cost Plus Market on State Street yet? It has been over 2 years since they needed repair )
"""""1.6 percent limit is not “stability”—it’s financial suffocation. Property owners large and small would be forced to subsidize the city’s housing policy out of their own pockets."
If Sacramento screws up again and the insurance rates climb, and their infinite stupidity increases the wages there is no way any Mom/Pop is going to survive. A floor job that used to cost $1,000 now costs $2,500 (sanding and sealing). A standard plumbing call is now $100 for the call and if it takes time there is that extra.
So the question becomes one of when do the radical socialists stop? Well that answer is never, that is why they are radicals.
I have said this before, Santa Barbara is one of 6 locations in the world with ocean, hills, climate and it creates a never ending "I wanna live here" issue. Sacramento doesn't get it because of radical socialists like Gregg Hart. He was backing this type of junk the first month of his first term on the Council. Does anyone remember Williams and the "living wage" that fell flat when at that time, the minimum wage would be $45,000+ and the city stated it could not afford it?
Sure let's open every aspect of our personal lives for government review.
This is the same insanity that closed streets, blocked streets, allows e-motorcycles on the streets that are dangerous, letting b-bike operate without license / fees, and let's not forget the illegal street food vendors. A City that is out of control. Just remember you voted for them so stop wringing your hands. You own this stupidity lock, stock, and barrel.
The laws of economics cannot be repealed. The free market is the most efficient system; and if society decides that certain people need financial assistance, then society as a whole should share that expense, not only landlords. Having renters demand that landlords lower their rent is like allowing the shoppers in a grocery store decide the prices of their purchases. Berney
When a city, county, state or national authority steps into contolling local economic issues based on equity, or social manipulation, it is an authorization for that economy to collapse.
Nothing good comes from authoritarian control.
Nothing of productive value or results come from economically ignorant political control.
Just look at the thriving, glowing bountiful economies of communist or socialist nations, at how great are their results.
Is Venezuela your chosen model? Or Cuba? Or China? Or Russia? Or Brazil?
This is the end result of the suppressive ideas being pushed by the City Council and Mayor of Santa Barbara.
As Celeste Barber stated, Meagan Harmon is the swing vote. Direct all of your emails, text messages and by chance in person comments to her. The others cannot be swayed.
My letter to city council ( next time please make emails actual email links ):
I have a simple plan that, if implemented, would gain you the support of every landlord in the city regarding rent control. Here it is:
1) Have the city freeze all its revenues from all sources at the same rate as the proposed rental control.
2) Continue to allow all city expenses to increase uncontrolled; insurance, property tax on city owned properties, salary increases, maintenance and repairs etc etc.
3) Do this for 3 years and then demonstrate to property owners who are being asked to follow this exact plan, just how this strategy succeeded for you.
This is insane. What they should be doing is lowering the property taxes so that we would not have to be raising the rents. If this does pass, and I hope it doesn’t, we all will have to either sell our properties or go to short term so that we can make enough money to cover the Cost of owning this property in the county that charges insane property taxes
Rita, you can count the four sure YES votes on your fingers right now. It will pass and there is nothing we can do about this: Sneddon, Santa Maria, Harmon and Gutierrez.
What we can do is vote far better in Sneddon and Harmon's districts, to rebalance the next incoming city council, since they both are termed out.
Yet another example of the liberal left chipping away at property rights. What’s next, having opposing views be marginalized by virtue of voting gerrymandering in order to have super majorities in perpetuity? Oh wait, that’s exactly what they are doing!
Rent control, free mass transit, free groceries, limits on wealth accumulation, all part of the “Mamdani affect.” This is where we are now heading as Democrats are embracing Socialism, with the ultimate goal of workforce and low income housing , guaranteed health care and income for all. Regardless of immigration status!
Don’t like it? Too bad, should you object loudly you’ll be singled out, chastised and bullied for being racist.
It’s high time for those that own property get off their duffs and unite and coalesce around protecting our interests before our community ends up like so many others blue communities, SF, Portland or LA.
I just heard Uber will be unionizing, time for property owners to do the same!
It's important that folks show up at the October 14 Council meeting and speak. As it stands, 2% Rent Control will pass on a 4/3 vote: Sneddon, Santamaria, Guitierrez, and Harmon. Harmon is the wild card. Remember: These are the same folks who voted to close State Street to cars.
It must also be noted that if Council approves, Staff will be redirected to focus on this item, setting aside the question of Short-term Vacation Rentals -- a serious issue for Mesa residents that requires attention NOW, not back-burner. The Council minority needs your presence in City Hall, and of course through emails.
If all this city council majority does is follow mob rule and bends to whatever group of self-serving activists shows up to threaten them in city hall chambers on the date of a vote, they have fully demonstrated they are unfit to serve need to be recalled immediately.
That agenda item on October 14 IS the line in the sand. The meeting where you show up and throw down the gauntlet. Force Sneddon, etc, to face the voters. Especially helpful if those of you who reside in their districts identify yourselves as such -- especially Sneddon's. Bear in mind that this woman is seeking the Mayor's seat.
Bear in mind a critical mass of voters in Kristen Sneddon's district** are already working for or are generously pensioned by the government, in one form or another. They are not going to be immediately affected by her private property take-over.
This critical mass of voters can well afford to live in Santa Barbara, thanks to local taxpayers and voters. (See Transparent California for government employment compensation packages for many Santa Barbara residents, by name.)
Which includes Ms Sneddon herself, who currently pulls down a quarter million dollars year every year in tax payer funded government compensation and benefits. She is tone deaf to any appeals from "her district". She literally has sufficient district votes in the bank.
**Sneddon's District Four: parts of San Roque, Upper East, Riviera, Eucalyptus Hill.
The thing I never understand about Santa Barbara (and I've had family here since 1961j is why anyone thinks it should be affordable now. When I got out of UCSB I wanted to stay here but there were no jobs and it was too expensive. So I went where I could get a small apartment and start my life. I always hoped/planned to come back. But I didn't insist that SB cater to my needs. All the kids I grew up with had to do likewise except my friends from ranching families who stayed to work on the family biz. That was 1974. Paradisiacal resort towns aren't supposed to be affordable for everyone. When you go to Lake Como or St. Bart's for a week do you rant against the expensive housing? Of course not. This is a resort town the elected idiots are intent on turning into an ugly place where they can rig votes but no tourist wants to spend money because it looks like the dumpville they already live in. In a few more years of this, stars like Selena Gomez won't be choosing Santa Barbara to spend millions on to get a photo shoot wedding.
‘Affordable’ housing needs a MAJOR REFOCUS toward current homeowners and landlords. Financial loads at every turn are UNAFFORDABLE: insurance; taxes + eye-popping add ons of bonds/fees; maintenance; repairs; code compliance. Total loss from earthquake or fire is a major risk that haunts every property owner in this town.
Case in point for one rental condo unit: water, sewer, garbage and maintenance costs went up $1200 a year and annual condo unit property insurance went up $800 a year, 8 unit condo complex insurance went up $1200 this year, along with annual property taxes on the condo unit that also go up incrementally every year. Fixed costs per unit.
Treading water is the best any landlord can now expect to get from making their housing unit available. Is this worth the on-going tenant grief in this current system, totally stacked against the landlord? Where one bad tenant can destroy any building maintenance reserves in a single case, by one obstructionist tenant. Earthquake insurance totally unaffordable agree forget it but every property owner is haunted daily not knowing when or if all will be lost with no compensation.
Landlords live daily with threats of loss, while tenants demand to be relieved from any and all risks and burdens of actual property ownership. New roofs, termites, water/sewer pipe bursts, routine painting, dry rot maintenance, floor coverings, property taxes, bond issues and parcel tax increases.
Add to that rental unit appliance replacements that come up from time to time: washing machine/ drier, stove, refrigerator, dishwater garbage disposal, water heater. Landlords are now being asked to fully subsidize these replacements as well and not recoup these costs in higher rents, if they exceed this draconian rent control limit. While the free market has many begging, hoping and waiting for a rental unit to show up on the open market. The subsidized tenant gets to laugh all the way to the bank.
Rent control is the government taking of private property, with no just fair compensation. It is an unearned subsidy by the lucky few, in exchange fo no community benefit for the whole. You cannot maintain a healthy community when only a few abritrarily benefit at the expense of the rest of the community.
Rent control, particularly in this community, is 100% misguided, patently unfair, dangerous and will serve as a death knell to the community at large.
Don't worry. When all the smaller landlords decide to sell, Black_rock will be right there to buy them up and leave them vacant so that they can manipulate the market while the houses die from lack of use. The City will oversee the water and electric grid, Black_rock will oversee housing, Gates our food supply, the pharmaceutical and healthcare insurance companies our healthcare, and we will live happily ever after...for a day or two.
Voters will need to accept they did this to themselves. Small former rentals right in the prime downtown area are now being offered for their STR opportunities, in their sales listings.
It would be nice to have more seasoned adults on city council who have wider life and business experiences. Not just demanding one-dimensional ideologues beholden only to Left and city employee unions. Voters have had other choices, but they were rejected in favor of the local Democrat machine.
We can also thank the leading political opinion leader for this area - the SB Independent - and its line-up of radical leftist opinion writers. Though props to Josh Molina recently who did appeal to tone down the violence inducing partisan rhetoric from the astro-turf local activists and former pols.
Thanks well as the bratty ex-NewsPress writers who got fired for refusing to carry out the new SB New Press owner's revival of the paper, and then who danced on the former SB NewsPress's grave when their boycott and social isolation of N-P subscribers was finally complete. Only to be now replaced with an even more radical local coverage as projected by the new owners of the former SB NewsPress logo.
We remain in a news desert locally, but this is what local readers demand and support. The rest follows suit.
Whatever SB Independent opinion is offered up I choose the opposite!
Housing is not a right. It is a commodity. It is a product that is bought and sold.
If you cannot afford this commodity in Santa Barbara, you have no right to demand someone else pays you to not commute to an area where you can afford the housing. End of discussion.
Voracious free housing activists in fact are demanding they have a right not to commute. Not buying what they are selling.
The problem today is greedy tenants; not "gouging landlords". Tenants demanding superior rights over property owners become professional squatters who freeze out the natural market forces who choose to and can afford to live in Santa Barbara.
Every property in Santa Barbara will be negatively affected by this unending confiscation of private property, requiring a wholesale revaluation of all current property tax rates.
I wonder how the State, County, and City will respond when property values start declining and everyone requests adjustments to their property taxes accordingly?
Government pensions have built escalator clauses - defined benefit pensions - which is where the real hurt will soon come because the state Supreme Court already ruled they must be paid in full. Even when local tax resources have been tapped out.
Who will be left to pay retired government employees what they now have an unmodifiable amount to receive for the rest of their life, but was never fully funded upfront?
Which city council members (past or present) or county supervisors (past or present) have shown even a cursory interest in this looming local taxation doom cycle?
Mostly true, but one of the market forces that makes housing expensive here is zoning and various building codes. The supply is artificially restricted by the government.
Santa Barbara used to be special in no small part because of zoning. It has restricted out of control irresponsible development (I am a developer). Yes, the consequence is the cost of housing.Some are willing to pay the premium...some are not. Where is it written that anybody has an entitlement to live in Santa Barbara? Like Polly I made the decision to stay here after college even though I knew affordability was a big issue and was willing to make that trade off for a quality of life that is now washing down the toilet thanks to the socialist make up of the Santa Barbara City Council.
I have moved all but one real estate investment out of the state…To a place that I call "America"...Utah and Idaho. The remaining property has leases coming due in the next 60 to 90 days. I will be significantly cranking up those rents...not because I want to charge more...but because I need to protect my investment from these communists going forward. I am not alone in that regard.
Should not basic test on economics and markets be required for City Council members as a requisite to hold office? Sneddon, SantaMaria, et., are your listening?
LibProf: Wrong. Very little in this city is zoned R-1. Nor do zoning restrictions even matter any longer. Lax zoning enforcement also continues to keep the supply of illegal second units in high supply.
The supply is "restricted" because there is so little turn-over, once here and once in government subsidized hosing no one leaves. So of course the inventory is restricted. Including what happens to insider turnover to next generational occupancy in public housing?
Claiming zoning and building codes restrict supply is an old wives tale for this particular area. There is an insatiable pipeline feeding demand to live here, many coming from the 5000 or so recent UCSB graduates every single year who do not want to leave.
The only housing that has turnover is housing for seniors who at least conveniently die and provide new vacancies. The rest dig in and that is the end of the supply chain.
Please update your housing supply arguments and make them pertinent to this particular area with its unique housing demands, Lib Prof Your arguments do not sound in fact nor real life experience.
If zoning regulations don't matter anymore, I supposed you'd be okay to get rid of them entirely?
There's literally an entire subfield of economics that shows that zoning and other regulations are responsible for high housing prices. It's not an old wive's tale for here or any other area. Anything that restricts supply is going to increase prices, given the same level of demand.
Get out of your ivory tower LibProf, and drill down to this singular unique community and the pressures it alone faces that will not show up in any generic "studies".
Local forces is the only source for any local planning projections, not data from "regular housing markets". Please, do you not know why this community is singular? We are done with "experts" or tax-payer funded academia, telling us to do with our future. They have been so spectacularly wrong on so many issues, that have driven disastrous public policy of late.
Santa Barbara is not a special snowflake, nor is it an alternate dimension where the laws of economics don’t apply.
I am literally arguing for the most pro-libertarian, private-property position imaginable. Get the government out of the way and let the market respond to demand. You are arguing for restrictive government regulation.
Please read Bryan Caplan’s Build Baby Build if you think I’m somehow arguing for an “ivory tower” position. https://www.amazon.com/Build-Baby-Science-Housing-Regulation/dp/1952223415
Santa Barbara is a special snowflake. It is land-locked between mountains and sea. It has low to zero housing-turnover rate and a conveyor belt of new housing demands every year, primarily from the UCSB machine.
I support limited government, which does include zoning. I do not trust my "fellow man" to do the right thing so I do want a community to color within the lines. It is who has been drawing the lines and for what reasons, that has changed and not for the long term health of this community, that concerns me the most.
I do believe the city does need to get out of the housing market. They have exemplary accomplishments today and can now rest on their laurels. It is time to let market forces play more of a role, which one would hope would be private property ownership and not institutional ownership.
That may be the next tweak that takes a responsible city government to tackle, once all this current screaming settles down and we can get out of district elections and back to elected officials viewing the city as whole again.
I agree with you - more institutional ownership - a direct result of recent city utopian micromanagement - is as much of a community death knell and a bleak future for total government control that may well be the alternate outcome too.
Who on city council is paying attention to (1) lessening private property controls and (2) limited institutional housing ownership? Who can hold two contradictory thoughts in their brain at the same time?
Also unique to Santa Barbara is the impact of Prop 13 transfers of the "family home" to more and more second/third generation out of town owners who become long-distance landlords and do not even vote in local elections?
I remain fond of the original Founders who wanted only resident property owners to be voters. So toss in Prop 13 reform and limit the transfers of inherited family properties if the new owner/owners are not residents in that property.
Do you believe if a majority of legal residents voted to put a population or density cap...zoning etc.... on their community and should become law.?
I agree with much of what you are saying. But I would encourage you to visit Zillow and do a quick search for home sales - especially during and immediately following COVID. There is turn over in our area because people "pump" the market by buying and flipping homes. I have been stunned when I do these searches on Zillow in the SB area!
LC: What drove these owners to dump their properties, and be done with this micro-managed one party town, now running seriously into red ink? Don't just blame the exploitive property buyers. Local and state legislation set this up to work exactly this way.
When a city council is swayed because noisy activists show up and bully them into voting for anti-private property ordinances, why should this work out any other way?
What motivated the sellers? This ever-expanding rent control and aggressive tenants rights legislation is driving many a long time mom and pop rental property owner to take the money and run.
To be clear, I was not blaming the mom and pop sellers, or those that have been local for a reasonable duration and decide to get out because things have "gone south". I don't think I suggested that. I just know that there is a faction of outsiders (or those who don't really care about SB they way those who have known it for decades do) who know that SB is desirable property (or has been historically). So they snatch some up, do a lipstick-on-a-pig job and then take their $250-500k+ and move on. And that is unfortunately desirable from a property tax revenue standpoint and real estate agent perspective because they all make money off of it. In the meantime, market costs just continue to skyrocket. Just ask Ellen and Porsche! Ugh.
(Portia)
City currently has vast numbers of low income and very low income housing units:
1. Santa Barbara Housing Authority properties in vast numbers all over the city
2. Inclusionary housing mandates in all new private development properties, or in lieu fees
3. Charitable housing units for targeted low income persons
4. Vast numbers of converted motel properties now serving only low income residents
5. Constant loss of of property tax paying properties to non-profit housing organizations
6. ADUs now permanently eliminating prior residential zoning controls
7. Uncounted number of illegal second units all over this city, materially impacting resources
8. Builder's remedy now inserting 5-7 story buildings in R-4 downtown areas
9. Federal Section 8 housing
And now greedy housing activists demand all rental property also becomes mandated "affordable" housing on their terms only. What will be left of the private property ownership necessary to sustain a healthy and mixed economy in this town?
Rent-control means virtually all housing in this town is now under 100% government control.
Opinion: Santa Barbara’s New Rent-Control Push Will Hurt the Very People It Claims to Help
By EnoughIsEnough805
Santa Barbara’s City Council is once again flirting with a policy that sounds compassionate but will ultimately deepen our housing crisis. On October 14, Councilmembers Kristen Sneddon and Wendy Santamaria plan to introduce a new rent-control ordinance capping annual rent increases at just 60 percent of the Consumer Price Index—a formula that would limit rent hikes this year to a mere 1.62 percent.
At first glance, that may seem fair. But let’s be honest: when utilities, insurance, and basic maintenance costs have all risen far faster than inflation, a 1.6 percent limit is not “stability”—it’s financial suffocation. Property owners large and small would be forced to subsidize the city’s housing policy out of their own pockets.
California already limits rent increases through state law (AB 1482), which caps them at 5 percent plus CPI, or 10 percent total—a framework designed to balance tenant protection and property rights. Santa Barbara’s proposed rule would go far beyond that and push us into legally and economically dangerous territory. It would make landlords petition a government board simply to cover expenses—an approach that sounds more like bureaucratic micromanagement than sound housing policy.
The likely results are predictable because we’ve seen them before:
Fewer rentals, as owners sell or convert to short-term uses.
Less new housing, as developers flee a market that punishes investment.
Falling property values, shrinking our tax base and hurting city services.
Higher rents, ironically, as scarcity deepens and demand outpaces supply.
Rent control may feel good politically, but it has never solved a housing shortage. It simply freezes the problem in place while discouraging anyone from building or maintaining the homes we desperately need.
If the Council truly wants affordability, it should focus on incentivizing new housing, cutting red tape, and enforcing existing state laws fairly, not layering on new restrictions that will backfire. Santa Barbara deserves thoughtful solutions—not populist experiments that punish those who provide housing in the first place.
Let your voice be heard before this misguided policy gains traction. Contact the Council and tell them rent control isn’t compassion—it’s control.
The bottom line: More rent control will not solve our housing challenges—it will make them worse. The only way to stop this is for Council to hear directly from you!
Mayor Randy Rowse rrowse@santabarbaraca.gov
Kristen Sneddon KSneddon@santabarbaraca.gov
Wendy Santamaria WSantamaria@santabarbaraca.gov
Eric Friedman EFriedman@santabarbaraca.gov
Meagan Harmon mharmon@santabarbaraca.gov
Mike Jordan mjordan@santabarbaraca.gov
Oscar Gutierrez ogutierrez@santabarbaraca.gov
There is nothing compassionate forcing others to pay people to live in areas they cannot afford , nor being able to meaningfully fund the necessary tax base required that support life in this area.
This city already has vast numbers of subsidized housing units. Rent-control simply adds thousands more subsidized units to this already very generous local "affordable" housing market distortion. There is a tipping point after which a community simply dies.
Is this an April Fool’s Day joke? So what fiduciary will allow any client, institutional or otherwise, to invest in Anything that is capped annually at a 2/3rds of CPI Gross, before costs?? Doing so Will clearly lead to a legal dumpster for anyone involved. This is an outrageous example of economic ignorance proposed by politicians, who have already destroyed what was once a beautiful commerce area, and now are marching rental property into a sadly sorry world of filthy cheap and loathsome rental ‘projects’, that typically spawn unhealthy, crime-ridden conditions into the community. This is the closest attempt that small-minded, power-fevered politicians in the U.S. have come to copying what Fidel did to Havana! Capping returns on housing incentivizes rodents. ( btw, have they fixed and sanitized the water fountains in front of New York Pizza and Cost Plus Market on State Street yet? It has been over 2 years since they needed repair )
Below says it all..... no if and's or but's
"""""1.6 percent limit is not “stability”—it’s financial suffocation. Property owners large and small would be forced to subsidize the city’s housing policy out of their own pockets."
If Sacramento screws up again and the insurance rates climb, and their infinite stupidity increases the wages there is no way any Mom/Pop is going to survive. A floor job that used to cost $1,000 now costs $2,500 (sanding and sealing). A standard plumbing call is now $100 for the call and if it takes time there is that extra.
So the question becomes one of when do the radical socialists stop? Well that answer is never, that is why they are radicals.
I have said this before, Santa Barbara is one of 6 locations in the world with ocean, hills, climate and it creates a never ending "I wanna live here" issue. Sacramento doesn't get it because of radical socialists like Gregg Hart. He was backing this type of junk the first month of his first term on the Council. Does anyone remember Williams and the "living wage" that fell flat when at that time, the minimum wage would be $45,000+ and the city stated it could not afford it?
Sure let's open every aspect of our personal lives for government review.
This is the same insanity that closed streets, blocked streets, allows e-motorcycles on the streets that are dangerous, letting b-bike operate without license / fees, and let's not forget the illegal street food vendors. A City that is out of control. Just remember you voted for them so stop wringing your hands. You own this stupidity lock, stock, and barrel.
The laws of economics cannot be repealed. The free market is the most efficient system; and if society decides that certain people need financial assistance, then society as a whole should share that expense, not only landlords. Having renters demand that landlords lower their rent is like allowing the shoppers in a grocery store decide the prices of their purchases. Berney
When a city, county, state or national authority steps into contolling local economic issues based on equity, or social manipulation, it is an authorization for that economy to collapse.
Nothing good comes from authoritarian control.
Nothing of productive value or results come from economically ignorant political control.
Just look at the thriving, glowing bountiful economies of communist or socialist nations, at how great are their results.
Is Venezuela your chosen model? Or Cuba? Or China? Or Russia? Or Brazil?
This is the end result of the suppressive ideas being pushed by the City Council and Mayor of Santa Barbara.
Just for the record, Mayor Rowse has always been against rent control.
As Celeste Barber stated, Meagan Harmon is the swing vote. Direct all of your emails, text messages and by chance in person comments to her. The others cannot be swayed.
My letter to city council ( next time please make emails actual email links ):
I have a simple plan that, if implemented, would gain you the support of every landlord in the city regarding rent control. Here it is:
1) Have the city freeze all its revenues from all sources at the same rate as the proposed rental control.
2) Continue to allow all city expenses to increase uncontrolled; insurance, property tax on city owned properties, salary increases, maintenance and repairs etc etc.
3) Do this for 3 years and then demonstrate to property owners who are being asked to follow this exact plan, just how this strategy succeeded for you.
Easy.
You are welcome.
Reminder of conservative fundamentals that are now fully trashed in this city:
1. Protection of private property
2. Free and equitable markets
3. Rule of law
4. Limited government
5. Full transparency
6. Equal protection under the law
7. Avoidance of actual or perceived conflict of interest
Fact of political life in Santa Barbara today - four votes needed to pass this latest draconian rent control demand:
There are already four solid yes votes: Sneddon, SantaMaria, Gutierrez; Harmon. They will not budge, so whose vote will you change?
1. Mayor Rowse - no
___2. Kristen Sneddon - YES - termed out, wants to run for mayor
___3. Wendy SantaMaria -YES-special minority/majority voting district campaigned on this issue
___4. Oscar Gutierrez -YES-termed out-nothing to lose-special minority/majority voting district
___5. Meghan Harmon - YES , termed out - nothing to lose
6. Mike Jordan - ? - their vote does not matter
7. Eric Friedman - ? - their vote does not matter
This is what term limits and Democrat-driven California Voting Rights Act district elections looks like in real life.
This is insane. What they should be doing is lowering the property taxes so that we would not have to be raising the rents. If this does pass, and I hope it doesn’t, we all will have to either sell our properties or go to short term so that we can make enough money to cover the Cost of owning this property in the county that charges insane property taxes
Rita, you can count the four sure YES votes on your fingers right now. It will pass and there is nothing we can do about this: Sneddon, Santa Maria, Harmon and Gutierrez.
What we can do is vote far better in Sneddon and Harmon's districts, to rebalance the next incoming city council, since they both are termed out.
Yet another example of the liberal left chipping away at property rights. What’s next, having opposing views be marginalized by virtue of voting gerrymandering in order to have super majorities in perpetuity? Oh wait, that’s exactly what they are doing!
Rent control, free mass transit, free groceries, limits on wealth accumulation, all part of the “Mamdani affect.” This is where we are now heading as Democrats are embracing Socialism, with the ultimate goal of workforce and low income housing , guaranteed health care and income for all. Regardless of immigration status!
Don’t like it? Too bad, should you object loudly you’ll be singled out, chastised and bullied for being racist.
It’s high time for those that own property get off their duffs and unite and coalesce around protecting our interests before our community ends up like so many others blue communities, SF, Portland or LA.
I just heard Uber will be unionizing, time for property owners to do the same!
It's important that folks show up at the October 14 Council meeting and speak. As it stands, 2% Rent Control will pass on a 4/3 vote: Sneddon, Santamaria, Guitierrez, and Harmon. Harmon is the wild card. Remember: These are the same folks who voted to close State Street to cars.
It must also be noted that if Council approves, Staff will be redirected to focus on this item, setting aside the question of Short-term Vacation Rentals -- a serious issue for Mesa residents that requires attention NOW, not back-burner. The Council minority needs your presence in City Hall, and of course through emails.
It is not important to "speak up".
If all this city council majority does is follow mob rule and bends to whatever group of self-serving activists shows up to threaten them in city hall chambers on the date of a vote, they have fully demonstrated they are unfit to serve need to be recalled immediately.
Start their recall petitions immediately.
That agenda item on October 14 IS the line in the sand. The meeting where you show up and throw down the gauntlet. Force Sneddon, etc, to face the voters. Especially helpful if those of you who reside in their districts identify yourselves as such -- especially Sneddon's. Bear in mind that this woman is seeking the Mayor's seat.
Bear in mind a critical mass of voters in Kristen Sneddon's district** are already working for or are generously pensioned by the government, in one form or another. They are not going to be immediately affected by her private property take-over.
This critical mass of voters can well afford to live in Santa Barbara, thanks to local taxpayers and voters. (See Transparent California for government employment compensation packages for many Santa Barbara residents, by name.)
Which includes Ms Sneddon herself, who currently pulls down a quarter million dollars year every year in tax payer funded government compensation and benefits. She is tone deaf to any appeals from "her district". She literally has sufficient district votes in the bank.
**Sneddon's District Four: parts of San Roque, Upper East, Riviera, Eucalyptus Hill.