The idea was dead on arrival, to force city restaurants still recovering from the financial bite of COVID-19 to redesign and reconstruct their outdoor parklets in a more uniform “Santa Barbara style.” The proposal came from City Hall staff, who said they had received complaints from local architects that the parklets — quickly built at the height of the pandemic when indoor dining was prohibited — don’t conform with the community’s “high aesthetic standards.”
On the table were recommendations to ban overhead elements (roofs, trellises, canopies, and string lights), astroturf, and “inappropriate” patio furniture. “Not indoor furniture that’s been repurposed and dragged outside,” explained Sarah Clark with the Public Works Department, who led the presentation to the City Council, “or cheap plastic lawn furniture that you would purchase at a hardware store.”
Only umbrellas would be allowed for shade, Clark explained, and only in pre-approved colors. Fencing would need to be made of wood or iron and be painted black or dark brown, and if it wasn’t, it would need to be fully screened with plantings to create “a more cohesive, garden-like appearance.”