San Andres Condo Project to Move Ahead

Again, bonus points to Nick Welsh for covering this news and getting the point and precedent on this obscure, yet stupid, overdevelopment, bigbox, unaffordable residential project.

I watched this deliberation on the City website (there's a plug) live last Tuesday. Councilmember Helene Schneider had to recuse because her residence is too close to the subject property, so only 6 Councilmembers were eligible to vote.

During the deliberation, this was totally flabbergasting when Grant House --who was smelling a 3-3 split on how the vote would come down-- then suggested (although quite nicely) that Mayor Marty Blum should not vote on this item because she was absent during the previous meeting when the stupid project was discussed during a different appeal of the Plan Commission decision.

Wow. That seems to be a new one on how to win a vote: just try to impeach the validity and status of a fellow Council member who has a different opinion. Even Williams v. Barnwell in the early years never came to that!!

As for the actual stupid project, this one would encroach into the required setback from the boundary of the City park, and all because no one in the review loop asked the applicant to make the car garages a small, normal size just like for nearly every other residential project in half the city.

While I often disagree with his basic theories of government, I commend Councilmember Dale Francisco (one of the NO votes on the stupid project) when he noted that the San Andres St. corridor and much of the Middle Westside 'hood was another (although grittier) Westside version of a Bungalow Haven neighborhood.

This stupid project the Council majority and the Planning Commission majority approved is just extending the Big Box zone southward of Bohnett Park towards Anapamu St. The area on the north side of the park already is bigboxed with overly massive condos with overly small setbacks from the street.

Good old SB, what a toilet. They won't be happy until they stucco over every square inch of dirt and tear out every tree in their paths.

SB is just another L.A. with blinding white stucco and red tile roofs from one end to the other, filled with rich people and well-heeled visitors, while its own residents go homeless.

Don't worry Holly, after the stupid, socially ignorant, greedy Blankety-Blank-enships flip the condo's to unsuspecting buyers, the new out 'o towner owners will bail at a loss when they realize they're in the middle of gangland. Dario will swoop in and make it into affordable housing for 40 of our favorite locals...

Just another example of the ghettoization of Santa Barbara by Grant House, Iya Falcone, and Roger Horton.