Keep people housed.
Build a clearer prevention path for qualifying households facing temporary instability, and put existing homes to better use.
A Future Here · Housing
Make room for local life.
Santa Barbara should be a place where more people can stay rooted, find a home, and build a future, while protecting the beauty, scale and public spaces that make the city itself.
Keep people housed. Make the housing path work. Create more homes where they fit.
Explore the housing plan
Three horizons · One housing system
Stability now. Delivery next. Capacity for the future.
Housing pressure moves on different clocks. Someone at risk of losing a home needs an answer now. A project stuck in conflicting review needs a clearer path. Santa Barbara also needs enough long-term housing capacity for the next renter, worker, family and generation.
Make the path work.
Coordinate reviews, publish clocks, resolve conflicting corrections and measure where approved housing actually stalls.
Make room for more.
Modernize housing rules, expand adaptive reuse, use public land deliberately and build workforce partnerships around real sites.
Current renters and future renters both count. A serious housing plan should protect people from avoidable housing loss today and create more places to live tomorrow.
Immediate term · Housing Stability Bridge
Catch a solvable housing problem before it becomes homelessness.
Santa Barbara already supports rental assistance, mediation and homelessness-prevention services. I would work to make the path easier to find, connect the right intervention to the actual problem, and measure whether stability lasts.
1 · Start
One clear front door
A resident at credible risk of housing loss should know where to begin.
2 · Diagnose
Find the pressure point
Temporary arrears, income loss, debt burden, benefit interruption, dispute or a structural affordability gap require different responses.
3 · Match
Use the right tool
Rental assistance, mediation, legal help, benefits, relocation support or longer-term subsidy where appropriate.
4 · Stabilize
Look at the whole budget
Offer voluntary referral to qualified nonprofit financial counseling when debt payments or cash-flow problems are part of the crisis.
5 · Verify
Measure what happened
Check whether housing is retained at 30, 90, 180 and 365 days and whether repeat assistance is needed.
Use existing resources first.
Map federal HOME rental assistance, County and regional prevention funding, Housing Authority resources, mediation, nonprofit programs and other partners before creating a new recurring City obligation.
Financial stability is part of housing stability.
A temporary rent payment may not solve a recurring household cash-flow problem. Qualified nonprofit counseling can help a resident review income, expenses, debt, benefits and available hardship options without turning City Hall into a financial adviser.
Keep counseling voluntary and private.
The City should measure aggregate outcomes, not collect residents’ private credit-card balances or spending histories. Counseling should help people who want it, not become a punitive condition for emergency assistance.
Measure the need · Learn from the demand
Stop guessing which housing hardships are actually reaching the edge.
A coordinated stability pathway can produce privacy-protected service data showing what people are asking for, what intervention they need, which funding source can serve them, where gaps remain and whether the solution lasts.
What brought the household in?
Arrears, temporary income loss, debt pressure, benefit interruption, landlord-tenant conflict, relocation need or a continuing affordability gap.
What solved the problem?
Financial assistance, mediation, legal help, benefits, counseling, longer-term subsidy, relocation or another verified intervention.
Did stability last?
Track housing retention, repeat assistance, unresolved need and entry into homelessness after intervention.
Important: program intake is a demand signal, not a census of every renter in need. Awareness, eligibility, trust and access affect who shows up. The City should use the data to improve services without pretending it captures every household under pressure.
Action, responsibility, cost and measurement
- Action
- Map existing prevention resources and administrators; design one coordinated intake and referral path; identify where a capped pilot would fill a verified gap; include an optional financial-stability referral pathway.
- Responsibility
- Community Development / Housing and Homeless Services under City Administrator direction, with contracted providers and County, Housing Authority, nonprofit, legal, philanthropic and institutional partners according to their roles.
- Cost and timing
- Require a fiscal note before launch. Use restricted and outside dollars first. Keep any City backstop capped and explicit. Establish the baseline and funding map in 2027 and bring a pilot design back during the first year.
- Measure
- Intake-to-decision time; households assisted; assistance type; unmet demand; housing retained at 30, 90, 180 and 365 days; repeat assistance; external dollars leveraged; public cost per durable outcome where defensible.
Medium term · Clear Path Housing
Once housing fits the rules, make the path predictable.
High standards and slow, conflicting processes are different things. Santa Barbara should be demanding about safety, design and infrastructure, and disciplined about time.
Coordinate the review.
Use early interdepartmental review and one consolidated correction package per round where possible, with the code basis for substantive corrections and an escalation path when departments conflict.
Name the owner and publish the clock.
Give defined project types a named case owner and show complete-application-to-decision time, correction rounds, reopened issues and the difference between City-caused and applicant-caused delay.
Test the project math.
Before major housing-rule changes, show the expected effect on total homes, deed-restricted homes, financing feasibility, subsidy, infrastructure, staffing and timing.
An approval is not a home. The City should follow projects from application through permit, construction and occupancy so the public can see where delivery stops and why.
Long term · Housing capacity
Create more homes where Santa Barbara can support them.
The long-term job is to decide where change belongs and make those locations physically, financially and procedurally workable while protecting Santa Barbara’s form.
Modernize AUD and adaptive reuse.
Review what actually reached construction under existing rules, then improve density, affordability, design and conversion pathways based on completed outcomes rather than theory alone. Focus adaptive reuse on suitable offices, large floorplates and buildings that can realistically convert.
Use public land for public value.
Give appropriate City-owned land and underused assets an intentional job: protect, serve, house, earn or activate. Major housing decisions should include a public-benefit and fiscal test.
Build workforce partnerships.
Bring employers, schools, healthcare, public safety, the Housing Authority, nonprofits, philanthropy and institutional partners together around sites, capital, master leases, rental assistance and workforce-specific tools.
Real places · Existing projects
Two ways housing can take shape.
These existing efforts illustrate public-land housing and adaptive reuse. They predate this plan and are examples rather than a complete inventory behind the 2031 goal.
Jacaranda Court
400 West Carrillo Street
63 homesHousing on a former City parking lot, with low- and moderate-income units and a long-term affordability covenant.
Former Nordstrom
817 State Street
80–112 homesThe current City agreement contemplates housing within the former Nordstrom footprint, including onsite moderate-income inclusionary units. The housing project remains subject to separate review and may change.
Proposed goal · By December 31, 2031
500 downtown homes. Each with a clear stage.
500Homes at different stages
Permitted, under construction or completed.
I would work toward 500 downtown homes reaching these stages by 2031, with a named public site list and quarterly updates. Completed homes would lead every report.
Completed
Construction finished and cleared for occupancy. Actual occupancy reported separately where verified.
Under construction
Work has started on homes that are not yet completed.
Permitted
Building permits issued for homes where construction has not started.
One home, one stage. Applications and theoretical zoning capacity stay outside the 500. The goal includes unfinished homes, so it does not promise 500 occupied homes by 2031.
Name the sites.
Publish the baseline, downtown boundary, site list, counting rules and first policy proposals.
Show movement.
Report permits, starts and completions against dated milestones.
Review delivery.
Publish completed homes, remaining barriers, costs and the following-year outlook.
Report the result.
Compare each stage with the 500-home goal and explain any shortfall.
Affordability and tenant stability
Protect people today. Preserve choices for tomorrow.
New market-rate homes expand housing choices, but they do not guarantee a rent every household can afford. Lower-income housing needs subsidy and enforceable affordability. Tenant stability also requires a practical answer for households at risk now.
Make affordability specific.
For income-restricted housing, publish who qualifies, applicable rent limits, home sizes, restriction terms, public subsidy and completed homes by income category.
Judge policy by the whole system.
I support tenant stability. I do not support making permanent rent regulation the centerpiece of Santa Barbara’s housing strategy. Any major housing rule should be evaluated for immediate protection, future supply, maintenance, investment, public cost and who can find the next lease.
My approach to rent stabilization
Tenant stability matters. Future renters matter too. My alternative is a full affordability operating plan: housing stability, housing delivery, subsidy, existing-home activation, public land, workforce partnerships, faster predictable approvals and protections that do not worsen the shortage.
Read my full rent stabilization position · Check the City’s current ordinance information
Evidence · Why project math matters
Housing rules have to survive financing.
The City’s April 2026 feasibility study illustrates how development rules and average unit size can change the number of homes a project can support and whether modeled land value clears the study’s feasibility benchmark.
Local-rule example
43 homes811 sq. ft. average home
Prototype V · 48 feet tall · 42,896 sq. ft. of building
Modeled below the study’s land-value benchmark.
State density-bonus example
59 homes614 sq. ft. average home
SDBL-I · Same height and total building area
Modeled above the study’s land-value benchmark.
The tradeoff is smaller average homes. This example supports testing more flexible rules while protecting design and livability. It is a study prototype, not a proposed building or a guarantee that a particular rule will produce 16 additional homes.
Read the April 2026 Inclusionary Housing and In-Lieu Fee Study.
Accountability
Show the need. Show the path. Show the result.
Residents should be able to see whether the City is preventing avoidable housing loss, improving the delivery path and completing more housing with clear public value.
Housing stability6- and 12-month retention, repeat assistance and unmet demand.
Existing homesDurable year-round activations and occupied months.
City clockReview time, correction rounds and delay by cause.
Housing deliveryPermits, starts, completions and occupancy.
AffordabilityDeed-restricted homes, income levels, subsidy and retention terms.
Council can change rules, fund programs, approve agreements and require reporting. Housing outcomes also depend on property owners, financing, construction costs, utilities, County and state programs, nonprofits and other partners. The public record should make those dependencies visible.
Sources and updates
- City Tenant-Based Rental Assistance: existing HOME-funded rental assistance and provider structure.
- Rental Housing Mediation Program: mediation, consultations and referrals.
- City multi-unit housing projects and construction: existing project reporting.
- BAE Inclusionary Housing and In-Lieu Fee Study, April 2026: feasibility examples.
- Project-specific City records are linked beside Jacaranda Court and the former Nordstrom example.
Policy proposals require Council action and, where applicable, legal review, fiscal analysis, program design and partner agreements. Project facts should be rechecked before major page updates.
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