FALLING BEHIND: Santa Barbara has a planning pipeline jammed with an astounding 1,000 proposed apartment rental units, but unlike 85,000 other California cities, it’s reluctant to levy fees that would lighten the impact on current residents.
While some members of the City Council scoffed recently that an impact fee wouldn’t raise much, Councilmember Bendy White estimates that perhaps $10 million-$20 million could be raised over the next five or 10 years to help offset effects of the rental building surge.
When the council on August 9 decided to table the impact fee issue until spring, Councilmember Jason Dominguez protested that even if a yearlong rate study were approved in 2017, the city wouldn’t see the revenue until sometime in 2018, by which time another 1,000 units might be in the pipeline.