Cities dig in heels against law easing second units.

Written by David Downs • Photos by Edee olson

For years, South Coast homeowners have faced tight restrictions and steep fees before they could build a separate room, kitchen and bathroom — a so-called second unit — on their property.

Such red tape was supposed to get thinner this winter, thanks to a new state law that mandates fast tracking the process. However, the second unit situation remains much the same or worse everywhere on the South Coast, except in the unincorporated area of Santa Barbara County.

Housing advocates say Goleta, Carpinteria, Montecito and Santa Barbara are only paying lip service to the law that stemmed from Assembly Bill 1866, while the cities argue that they are trying to protect general plans from distant and careless Sacramento legislators.

This week, Santa Barbara County became the last government to review its second-unit building requirements. It looks as if the county will be the only one to follow the spirit and intent of the legislation.

Effective July 1, AB1866 was intended to boost housing and speed up the required permitting for second units by cutting down on public review. County Planner Alicia Harrison said the county intends to do just that, as well as loosen up some restrictions on minimum lot size and other factors. Already, she said, the law is affecting homeowners’ planning for second units.

Twenty-seven second unit permit applications have come in during the four months since the new law has been enforced, Harrison said. In the past, the county granted an average of 20 permits per year for second units.

Montecito allowed just two second units within the last decade, and laws in that area will likely remain as strict, Harrison said.

Santa Barbara allowed an average of 1.2 second units during the last decade, said city planner Bettie Hennon.

Under its moratorium on building, Goleta has not allowed any second units since that city’s inception. Goleta’s new restrictions, passed in October, also limit second units to every third property, and include 30 other limits on proposals. Carpinteria also recently passed tighter laws on second units.

The area ordinances are so rigid that they drive people to build illegally, said Greg Gandrud, the lone Carpinteria City Councilmember who voted ‘no’ on the new restrictions.

“There were so many restrictions that when they start to intersect, it made for a situation where it would be virtually impossible for anyone in real life to have a second unit,” he said. “People have already threatened to sue. What we did was make a mockery of the state law.”

Goleta mayor Jack Hawxhurst helped pass even tougher homeowner restrictions on the South Coast. Goleta, he said, had to protect its single-family neighborhoods and other zones against rampant growth of duplexes that could worsen parking and traffic while taxing infrastructure.

“The state did not hand us a whole bunch of money for streets and other infrastructure,” Hawxhurst said.

Opponents see another side to the tight restrictions. Cities are exaggerating the threat of second units as an excuse to continue heartless, no-growth NIMBY-ism, said Nancy Hancock of South Coast Livable Communities.

“I don’t think they would’ve been flooded with applications,” she said. “(AB 1866) is not a magic solution, but it really is helpful to a number of homeowners and the people who are housed through these second units, and it is something that should be easier to do than it’s going to be.”

Santa Barbara County resident Steven McGovern lives in the area between Goleta and Santa Barbara and is one of the 27 people to request second unit permits since the law became effective.

Even with the law, building a second unit has been taxing, he said. It cost him almost seven months and more than $25,000 in fees just to get permission to build a second unit for a daughter who is attending SBCC. Down the road, the unit will house guests and add equity to his property, he said.

Hawxhurst’s fears about excessive street parking do not apply in McGovern’s case — the resident has a big lot with ample driveway space. His neighbors do not seem to be worried about the area becoming duplex-heavy housing, he said.

“In fact, they asked us to let them know how it goes because they were thinking of doing the same thing,” McGovern said.

If McGovern lived a few miles in either direction he probably wouldn’t be able to build the unit, and if he did, his neighbor then would have been disqualified from building one.

Goleta homeowner Harry Rouse, however, said he agreed with Goleta’s rules after seeing his neighborhood “turn into a cesspool” because of rampant, illegal second units and garage conversions.

“How much is too much?” he said. “At what point do we become like L.A. or Oxnard, where we’re just hopelessly overcrowded with population and crime and cars parked everywhere, because we just don’t want that.”

State mandates are a challenge for cities, but they should try to comply in good faith, said longtime Santa Barbara architect Michael Holliday. Goleta’s moves are interesting and odd, he said.

“Cities tend to be very myopic. It’s a micro-level of planning where, if it’s outside the city boundaries, I don’t want to know about it. And that’s not the best way,” he said.

Not so, said Michael Phillips, Montecito Planning Commissioner. The state planners are the ones who are myopic and don’t understand local issues when they pass laws across the board, Phillips said. He helped retain Montecito’s five-acre minimum lot size requirement for its proposed second units.

“There are some areas of Montecito where (second units) would end up being beach houses for people in L.A.,” he said.

Infill housing is necessary, but second units are not the only way to do it, according to local architect Paul Poirier. He promotes placing homes above businesses in mixed-use structures on busy urban corridors, instead of changing the nature of single-family residence zones.

“There’s acceptable situations where having a granny unit in the back wouldn’t even really impact the neighborhood, but once you allow that, you open yourself up to the opportunist who’ll come in and put in multiple units on the site and rent it out,” Poirier said.

Though the issue of second units may leave local agendas after a county hearing this month, it promises to return with a vengeance.

Cities all across the state have snubbed the AB1866 mandate, so California is coming up with a stronger one. A controversial piece of newer legislation called Assembly Bill 1160 would eliminate many existing city requirements for second units, making them easier for homeowners to obtain.

Most South Coast jurisdictions are drafting formal letters of opposition to AB1160. The fate of the bill will likely be determined in 2004.

The whole thing is becoming an expensive tit-for-tat that wastes more than it solves housing problems across the state, Hawxhurst said.

“We’re talking millions of dollars in bureaucracy just trying to deal with these few sentences,” he said. “They force each of these jurisdictions to tighten down rules in essence because they lose other areas of judgment.”

Phillips said one cannot solve a housing crisis with a single law, and that more time and money are required to adequately study the issue.

“There’s this frustration that coastal communities are just getting too expensive. The problem is there just isn’t a simple answer or a quick resolution,” he said.

In the interim, illegal units will flourish, all without the associated tax dollars going to local infrastructure, Gandrud said.

“People are afraid of growth. And under the name of stopping growth they haven’t really stopped it, they’ve only complicated it,” he said.
The county’s second unit ordinances take effect in January, though some provisions must be approved by the California Coastal Commission.