Cottage Workforce Project EIR
Travis Armstrong's opinion piece related to the Cottage Workforce Housing Porject at St. Francis made some good points about what might happen in the future if Cottage were to come back and want more units to make more money. Is that two times in one week that I'm agreeing with him? That must be a record...I'm also very happy to see the tone of recent articles have come down quite a few notches. Let's hope this trend holds.
I'm interested in a part of the argument against the EIR that our brave new blogger and neighborhood activist Cheri Rae recently wrote an email to me about. It's based on a quote from the EIR itself:
A back-of-the-napkin calculation tells us this equals an estimated 50 trips per day over a year a half. 18,000 trips total down past SB High School, the crowded Milpas corridor and towards the highway-close recycling facility. Rae points out 50-75 percent of these trips could be avoided if the project is redesigned to use some of the existing buildings at the site. I'm not sure if that would be feasible or not to Cottage but it sounds like something that could be looked at.
I'm interested in a part of the argument against the EIR that our brave new blogger and neighborhood activist Cheri Rae recently wrote an email to me about. It's based on a quote from the EIR itself:
"The haul trucks are assumed to travel between the Project and Marborg's C&D Recycling Facility located at 119 N. Quarantina Street. The haul route includes Salsipuedes Street, Anapamu Street, Milpas Street, Yanonali Street, and Quarantina Street and is approximately 3.60 miles."
A back-of-the-napkin calculation tells us this equals an estimated 50 trips per day over a year a half. 18,000 trips total down past SB High School, the crowded Milpas corridor and towards the highway-close recycling facility. Rae points out 50-75 percent of these trips could be avoided if the project is redesigned to use some of the existing buildings at the site. I'm not sure if that would be feasible or not to Cottage but it sounds like something that could be looked at.
posted by Sara De la Guerra | 8/25/2006 05:39:00 AM
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75 Comments:
All of these trips could be avoided if the project is stopped! Don't give in Cheri Rae!
IN BRIEF/THE STATE /SANTA BARBARA
Newspaper Owner Demands Damages
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
August 25, 2006
The owner of the Santa Barbara News-Press has filed a legal action demanding $500,000 in damages from former editor Jerry Roberts, sources at the newspaper said.
The claim on behalf of Publisher Wendy McCaw's Ampersand Inc. was filed with an arbitrator, as required in Roberts' employment contract. It accuses him of breach of contract and causing damage to the News-Press.
ADVERTISEMENTRoberts, four other editors and a columnist resigned in early July, complaining that the personal biases of McCaw and her allies infected the news pages of the News-Press. Eight other journalists have since joined the exodus.
The Ritz-Cottage project needs to be pronounced DOA!
Cottage Workforce Project? How nice.
Call it what it really is: Neighborhood Destruction Projct!
I would like to see this made into a park.
There are two things which the NP has been helpful with. Killing the Cottage Hilton, and defeating Measure D.
Lets hope they keep the pressure on our City Officials.
I thought Cheri Rae had stopped this project. It's still on?
Mike Pinto says...
Before we talk about housing the rich, or nurses, or doctors, or shopkeepers, we need to address the complete housing and jobs imbalance for homeless people. They have no homes and no jobs!We need a leader to stand up for them. Nurses are "haves". Why not help "have nots" first! Oh, I am so sick of hearing about Travis and Jerry Roberts. They have gotten, and will get what they deserve. Newspaper people are so self centered.
How can the NIMBY's continue to be so blind to the needs of critical workforce in this community. Who will be there for you when you have a heart attack or need dialysis? Not only nurses, but doctors, are routinely turning down jobs left and right because they simply cannot afford to buy a house here.
It would be lovely if critics/commenters would keep up with the facts -- but that may be asking too much. Re-use has been thoroughly analyzed and found unfeasible -- largely because the resulting building would be terrible to live in with long bowling-alley-like halls dividing the skinny units. Instead, there will be a lovely design, with overall lower visual profile than the existing structure. Reconstruction is part of an evolving city -- get over it and move on...
What does Cottage say?
Are there really 18,000 haul-truck traffic trips from construction? That seems like a completely phony number to me.
Also, I wonder how much of the original buildings could really remain - is reuse really feasible?
I can't believe the only issue is that nurses don't want to live in a converted hospital.
The visual profile of a park would be better. Stop defending growth and development. We don't want any!
The issue is we don't want this in our neighborhood. Simple.
It's not only feasible, the Environmental Impact Report states that reuse of some of the buildings has "the potential to be environmentally superior to the proposed project." It would reduce emissions by 50%, demolition waste by 63% and truck trips by 50%. When you look at the facts of this project it has tremedous short-and long-term negative impacts that extend way beyond the neighborhood. Do proponents suggest we simply ignore these impacts for the benefit of nurses? What if this project was being proposed by Wendy McCaw to house reporters who probably don't make any more money than nurses? Would that project be just as desirable, or are we now deciding on the value of residents based on their professions? And the value of projects based on who proposes them, environmental effects be damned.
Read the EIR, which is available online at the city's website.
As far as the reconstruction vs. reuse goes, adaptive reuse is typically a point of pride in environmentally conscious communities (and even much less progressive places, too) that understand that a sustainable approach to dwindling resources, rising constuction costs and environmental degradation due to demolition is to re-use buildings, not just throw them away. It's what you would expect in the birthplace of the environmental movement. Do some research on hospital-to-housing adaptive re-sue. You'll be surprised at the innovative ways that it is being handled apparently everywhere but here. Oh, that's not quite true; there's a former mortuary/crematorium on State Street that's currently being adaptively reused into a real estate office. Using the same logic as those who claim nurses can't live in a former hospital, how could real estate professional work in that refurbished place?
50 Trips per day is 5 trips per hour (assuming a 10-hour workday).
5 Trips per hour is one trip every 12 minutes.
I doubt haul trucks will get filled in 12 minutes.
Another calculation is to compare the volume of 18,000 trucks with the volume of the existing St. Francis... crudely, I'd estimate that St. Francis is no more than 1,000 truck volumes big.
Instead of er, bulldozing the neighbors, Cottage ought to take a page out of the Westmont College playbook. After six years of contention and review, Westmont finaly has substantially revised its expansion plans, according to the Montecito Journal. Westmont officials said, "We have listened closely and responded to the feedback we have received. With this redesign, we feel that every reasonable concern has now been addressed from both an environmental and a design standpoint." Maybe the Cottage team just needs to go back to school for a while and learn to listen.
The way things are going the News-Press building will be vacant soon. Stick the nurses there.
This is a bad project.
How about an adopt a nurse program. You could rent them a room 5 days a week. We could make the old St. Francis into a park for the community or just open space, and everyone wins.
The problem with this project is that it does not reflect the concerns and aesthetic sensibilities of the neighborhood. If Cottage were creating a whole new neighborhood on previously undeveloped land, then they would be justified in sitting down with government planners and coming up with design that meets both Cottage's and the planning department's needs. However, this is not the case here.
There is already a neighborhood there. Any change to the existing design and function of the neighborhood will affect everyone living in it. The very act of the demolition and construction will pour pollutants into the air that cannot but create potential health effects. Increasing the number of people in the neigborhood cannot help but increase traffic congestion on the streets.
As with all politics, the key to this project is balancing the needs of all the players. Cottage needs workforce housing and owns the land on which to build it, fair enough. Cottage's property rights to do with the their property what they please, end at their property boundary. Effects that spill over the property boundary, such as air pollution, increased traffic, construction phase safety, and such, are the righful concern of the neighborhood and should be mitigated to the satisfaction of the neighbors (not the satisfaction of the planners).
It is unreasonable however for the neighbors to take the use of the property away from Cottage. Some housing project should be allowed. On the other hand, Cottage should not expect to get what they want, the neighbors be damned.
The solution to this tension should include a community forum wherein Cottage and neighbors sit down and work out a compromise that meets everyone's needs. Unfortunately, the EIR process is not conducive to such a discussion. The City really needs to step up here and act as a neutral third party and facilitate the negotiation. Instead the City appears to be advocating for the project. That is unfortunate.
My advice to Cottage: Forget about winning over the City planners; they are already on your side. Rather, reach out to your neighbors, really listen to them, and design a project that the neighbors will support. The alternative is rancor and lawyers and court dates way out into the future and no homes for your nurses in anything like the near term.
Let the lawsuits begin. This has to be stopped. The City needs to stop this or step aside.
Philosophe, you sound like a development advocate. Careful what you ask for.
Selling one's soul isn't a good thing.
An inept lot like the City Planners who can't even measure the width of a street can't be trusted. If they're for this project, we should have even more doubts about it.
But, Philosophe, the real goal of the neighbors is no housing whatsoever. I've seen the same process around the South Coast a number of times. It is in effect a guerilla war, with every obstacle and roadblock thrown down by the neighbors... the only compromise that they will accept is nothing at all.
philosophe is exactly correct. All I can add is that Cottage severely miscalculated when it trotted forth Ron Biscaro as the "VP of Real Estate Development" to push the project. The neighbors have already been through an agonizing battle with him over the medical building that was grudgingly okayed after he pushed it as the way to keep St. Francis open. The neighbors' sense of bitter distrust and betrayal by him was severely aggravated when Cottage showed such extreme insensitivity and great hubris by forcing the neighbors to deal with him again. This project started out with that huge strike against it--and things have gotten worse ever since with Cottage's sense of entitlement combined with the neighborhood's outrage and the City's determination to ok anything that has "workforce housing" attached to it. It will be interesting to see how City Council Members who so love neighborhoods when they're trolling for votes--treat this neighborhood when it comes time for them to fairly examine the environmental effects of this project on that neighborhood.
Anon. 4:07, soul not for sale. However, I would be the first to admit that I have sullied its edges with a tendancy toward pragmatism. I am not a big development fan, but I understand the reality of property rights in these United States; and I believe that we can reach a middle ground that allows people to realize the value of the their property but minimizes the affects of such economic action on the community. Forgive me for my optimism. Even Goethe saved Faust at the end:
"The noble Spirit now is free,
And saved from evil scheming:
Whoe'er aspires unweariedly
Is not beyond redeeming."
Middle ground is where you get run over.
The BIG LIE here is that "the neighbors" are against Cottage's plans. I am a neighbor, and of the hundreds of households in the vicinity, only a handful have a problem with what Cottage is doing, and they are spreading incredible, fear mongering misinformation. Shame on them. Most of us want to replace the institutional eyesore of a structure that is there right now with something more fitting. That's precisely what we told Cottage they should do at neighborhood meetings two years ago, and that's what they are doing.
We do not want either Greek or Roman Models if we are but just and true to
our own Imaginations, those Worlds of Eternity in which we shall live forever...
Where's the accountability? The Planning Department, with its entrenched nepotism and staff of bureucratic functioaires is happy to grant modifications for developers, especially this one (outrageously incompatible density, reduced setbacks for buildings, putting buildings way too close together, etc, tandem parking, etc.) What happens to the individual asking for just one of those breaks? The double standard is appalling--yet they keep getting away with it with an oops, we made a mistake (that impacts the community foreverl as with the mismeasured Taj Majal parking garage...How do these guys keep their jobs?
Lucas, we don't want this. Don't try to fool people that you represent a majority. Look at the roundabout fiasco. I'm still waiting for that to take a life or two.
How do they keep their jobs indeed? Good question. The City has no credibility!
Soul not for sale. Seat on the City Council is for sale, however. For $80,000+ salary.
People who oppose this project are spread out literally across this city and far beyond...talk about it to your friends and family who don't live here, and virtually everybody calls it a scam designed to create a monopoly and a subjagated workforce. The politicians in this city ought to be ashamed of themselves for not standing up and demanding serious answers to the questions that the citizens are smart enough and informed enough to ask. Instead they quote Cottage's talking points and seem incapable of critical thinking when it comes to this one.
Could not agree more about the temporary roundabouts and city staff's incompetence. The sand bags holding up the roundabout yield signs don't even have bags anymore, they are graffitted, and they are about to fall over. The same staff that can't replace these with permanent structures also brought us the Granada garage measuring fiasco, and a Cottage EIR that is scaring people that there will be 18,000 demolition trips. (Not sure if Dodger stadium would take that many.) While the city is inept and a few neighbors have too much time on their hands, Cottage is trying to be proactive and replace an eyesore with homes for the health care workers that we all depend on. We need to get the city bureacrats and the NIMBYs in my neighborhood out of the way -- there's plenty of room for all of them in Goleta.
City Council has no shame. And they aren't smart enough to know this is a scam.
Pearl Chase wanted to prevent things like this. Let's not throw our Pearl at swine.
Funny that St. Francis is now referred to as an eyesore and an ulgy old building that's incompatible with the neighborhood. Actually the hospital predates the neighborhood that grew up around it. And it underwent every architectural and design review possible, and it was substantially added to not that long before it was closed down...look at the facts people, before just forming an opinion based on biased rhetoric.
And the next big scam appears to be Measure D.
St. Francis is dead. Let's bury the corpse, plants some trees, install some tables and make it a gift to the community.
cheri rae said...
I just recived notice from Paul Casey that the August 17 Planning Commission meeting has been cancelled, and the entire EIR hearing rescheduled for September 14. Score another one for neighborhood advocates this week!
8/09/2006 11:07 AM
Guess what: As of today, the City's own website still lists the meeting as August 17th and the links to info on this project don't seem to be working. Deliberate on Incompetence? Looks like the September 14th meeting has not been noticed properly, nor the public informed of the change.
I'm confused. Did the meeting happen and I missed it, or is it going to happen?
I went to the City's website as suggested and it looks like it has already passed.
What better gift to the community than affordable homes for the people who care for us when we need care most, at no expense to taxpayers?
No expense? What about the destruction of a whole neighborhood?
So the city that can't measure a roadway can't even manage to change the date on its website? What kind of incompents are running this City anyway? Or is it not incompetence at all, but a way to get exactly what City Hall, the planners and the developers want. Who cares about the silly residents anyway, they don't really fit into America's Riviera with their silly demands for accuracy and accountability.
affordable homes? For whom? I don't think that even a City Council member could afford one of the proposed homes on their current salary. So why build them?
I don't see how this is a gift. Why the rush to build this?
They still haven't rebuilt the World Trade Center, nor rebuilt New Orleans.
I don't see any crisis that would dictate a massive project such as this.
Our community's only hospital is operating in the red, and most of our health care workers commute from Ventura and Santa Maria. But you're right, let's wait for a 9/11 or a Katrina to hit us here before we act like there's a crisis. And while we're at it, let's pretend that replacing a failed hospital with homes that will result in less traffic and better views will "destroy our neighborhood" so that we can feel like we are doing something important while we sit back and enjoy the fact that the old hospital sits vacant and un-used.
There must be a LOT of money to be made in these condos... not to mention the condos that Cottage will get AFTER all agreements are made and they muscle them in.
How many "affordable" units are there? Does this serve even a fraction of the nurses that don't have a home?
Could teachers and firefighters have some of those condos?
lucas, as people in the Oak Park area how they aren't being affected by the Current Cottage Hospital Project. It's like downtown Beirut around there.
Better yet, try having to use the Emergency Room like I recently did. Six hours waiting just to see someone.
Lompoc has already started on their new hospital. Next time I have an emergency, I plan on driving up there. I could get up there see a doctor and be home in less time than I would have to wait in extreme pain here.
Housing welfare? What is this?
How about just leaving it as is, and making it a retirement home. I heard those places charge $4,000 - $5,000 per month. About what a mortgage costs, and that way our seniors would have a place to go.
7:13, you make Lucas' point. Cottage has a staffing problem leading to long waits, amongst other things, and their plan for St. Francis will help fix that. And the alternative to the Cottage Hospital rebuild is that EVERYONE would have to go elsewhere. (I think it's better to have a hospital here in Santa Barbara, but maybe that's just me.)
8:21, it's not welfare in any sense. It's a private, non-profit organization (not a developer or the city) being proactive to help deal with a staffing crisis.
Great idea. You could almost install revolving doors. As folks die, new ones come in, and the cash just keeps on coming.
This isn't about the nurses. It's about Cottage getting into the real estate business. We aren't fooled into thinking that nurses are going to get these places.
And what about Fire and Police? Who's neighborhood are we going to stick them in?
Cottage stopped being a hospital a long time ago. It's more of a death farm.
Pay the staff better and let them live where they will. Don't build housing for them!
11:03am
Please give the name of the non-profit organization that you referred to. I'd like to know more about who they are supported by. Thanks.
11:03am
Have you been to Cottage lately? It's more than a staffing problem. It's almost like being in a 3rd world country when you visit.
Looks like the City corrected the date on their website. Probably only after it was pointed out to them. Don't want to give credit where it isn't due.
Cottage's housing scheme is to let the nurses "buy" their condos until they don't work for Cottage anymore, then they have to leave them...This is ust postponing the housing problem these nurses have until they're older, market prices are higher and they still have no way to buy their own home in SB. But by then Cottage won't need them anymore, so they can leave town and no one will care. There's a serious social cost to a scheme like that and it should be seriously discussed. This kind of scheme used to be called a company town--now with its nicer name of workforce housing, it soulnd better, but its still a misuse of the individual for the good of the corporation. And don't be fooled by the non-profit status--hopitals all over the country are having their status studied by the IRS and investgated by their attorney general's office.
Where do I sign up to get a $1+ Million Dollar Condo?
Cottage has had abysmal ER waiting times for the past decade. It has nothing to do with real estate pricing -- many hospitals don't put sufficient resources into their emergency rooms because they *don't make money*. They provide the minimal service levels required by law and little more, because many patients are uninsured and can't or don't pay their bills. This is how Cottage management thinks.
St Francis was always the ER to go to for fast response. The hospital always seemed underappreicated by the community. Much of its financial losses were due to a more charitable philosophy of helping people in need even when costs could not be recovered, compared to Cottage's mercenary instincts.
Cottage management lies like most people breathe. When Cottage shut down St Francis' ER in 2003, they swore up and down that they would expand their ER sufficiently to handle the load. They didn't, and waiting times skyrocketed. Management *chooses* not to put resources into this area, and outside the realm of corporate propaganda or wishful thinking, building Hong Kottage on the Riviera won't improve waiting times one bit.
So how do we get the City to listen and put an end to this scam?
Is anyone on City Council concerned or listening?
I know Das has a blog:
Das Blog
But it seems to be mainly about how great he is...
This is frustrating. It's our community and we elect this folks, yet they ignore us.
I don't understand why there are any market rate units at all. Cottage should remove them.
BTW, UCSB has a big development planned out on Phelps Road... 100% affordable... but in a wetland.
So Cottage willing puts the health of the community at risk with long waiting lines in the ER?
Sounds almost criminal. And they want our blessing on their housing scheme?
Wow! This is too much. Has he Grand Jury looked into any of this?
Sounds a bit scandalous.
Bingo. And the reasons why this city needs a reputable newspaper and knowledgeable reporters capable of investigative reporting are now more apparent than ever.There's enough here for a 5-part series!
Wow! This thread is sounding a lot like someone talking to herself. How can we get to the bottom of this blogging scheme?
That would have to extend to KEYT as well. About the only thing they report anymore is gang activity in Oxnard and the weather.
The City may have changed the date, but the link to the EIR doesn't seem to work. Hmmm
Wow, this blog thread has started to sound like the crying you would hear in the old piece of crap nursery at St. Francis. I've never heard such a bunch of self-centered NIMBY whiners, and I'll wager that most of the 'Anonymous' posters are the same four or five folks, half-lit on cheap box wine.
Many of you have complained about City planners and other staff, without considering that the lack of workforce housing (that you seem to trumpet as a good thing for some reason) has caused massive staff turnover at the City, and they are unable to recruit the "best and brightest" or at least retain them long enough to learn the culture of the community and grow to be better at their jobs (kind of like Vladdie and the other newbie News-Supress cub reporters).
You also seem to think that it's the job of the staff and/or City Council to arbitrarily wave a magic want and stop projects. Seems like you're getting SB confused with Goleta where their moronic council has done just that and now finds itself entagled in major litigation that it will likely lose, and may be forced into bankruptcy and become unicorporated again. After all the years of hard work to finally become it's own City, how more irresponsible and short-sighted could that council be?
I wonder have any of you NIMBYs actually traveled outside of SB or heaven forbid lived somewhere else? If you did I think you would see that our community is WAY out of balance in comparison to typical, healthy communities. It's very simple - we have a housing crisis that is resulting in a degradation of our community. When ordinary working people (unlike you trust fund or divorce-settlement folks) can't afford to buy a place to call home, they don't put down "roots" and as a result don't get involved in the fundamental fabric of what makes a community unique - things like volunteerism at non-profits; community activities/clubs/festivals and other cultural events; involvement in their kids school functions and sports like little league, soccer, etc.; and also politics. That is why the silent majority remains for the most part silent. They are feeling disenfranchised and hopeless about making a life in the community.
One post above talks about Cottage being "like being in a 3rd world country when you visit." I'm not sure if this poster is referring to the patients or the staff, but either way it's a pretty racist/biggotted/redneck comment to make. Are they alleging that only white Santa Barbarian doctors and nurses are suitable enough to treat them when they're in need of medical attention?
We need to cut all the BS out and move forward with responding to the needs of the WHOLE community, not just a few self-centered vocal NIMBYs. Let's get on with it!
Are you high?
There is no crisis. We don't need this project. Cottage is trying to get into the real estate business. Plain and simple.
This is a retirement community and doesn't need more building.
What's wrong with a workforce that commutes? No one is forcing folks to do this, it's their choice.
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