To applause in City Hall on Tuesday evening, Goleta's city manager, Robert Nisbet, announced that the city's Housing Element was approved by the state as of Monday, February 5.
"They don't actually use the word 'certified,'" Nisbet told the councilmembers. The letter from the Housing and Community Development department states that the city's document, adopted on December 5, "is in substantial compliance with State Housing Element Law," he said. The remainder of the substance are the city's programs to encourage that the housing is actually built, the letter states.
For the past two and a half years, the city has been holding workshops and meetings, and writing up the lengthy documents that outline the city's goals in adding 1,837 housing units to the city's stock by 2031. The back-and-forth with the state's Housing and Community Development Department resulted in a different balance of parcels than the city had intended — more in open spaces and fewer within commercial areas.