It’s been seven years since the project was approved by the County of Santa Barbara, but the bulldozers are now clearing a North Patterson Avenue property to make way for The Knoll, a subdivision that will include 12 new homes and the existing historic mansion on about five acres. “The market has healed,” explained Jeff Nelson of the Oak Creek Company, a development outfit based on State Street in downtown Santa Barbara, “so now we’re starting up.”
Thanks to the rebounding real estate situation, his company, which previously developed Vintage Ranch off of Puente Drive, will also start two other Goleta Valley projects in the next six months: The Boulders, which includes 16 homes on 15 acres along San Antonio Creek Road, and the Tree Farm project on the Cavaletto property nearly adjacent to The Knoll on Patterson, where 134 homes of diverse types (including 24 affordable units, a combination of “workforce” housing, and low-income rentals) will be spread across 26 acres. The latter project was the most controversial, taking 12 years of planning until being approved in 2012.
“All of these have taken a long time, and they happen to be coming to a punch line at the same time,” said Nelson, who runs his company with his son, Jason. “On each of these projects, the complexity and long duration and market conditions were a great challenge and struggle for us, but we hung in to get them to this point.”