BlogaBarbara

Santa Barbara Politics, Media & Culture

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Neighborhood Impact Update

The Santa Barbara Independent's Barney Brantingham has reported that Jimmy's Oriental Gardens will be made into a museum by the Trust for Historic Preservation to celebrate the heritage of the Canon Perdido neighborhood. It was sold for $3.1 million. They plan on using bridge financing from the city and several foundations to make it part of the El Presidio de Santa Barbara Historical Park.

Montecitans found out this week that Ty Warner plans to sell the Miramar Hotel and is described in the same article. In a bit of Beanie Baby irony, Bob Collector is quoted as saying that Warner's finger pointing at the Montecito Association is "a bit absurd".

West Beach residents might be interested in knowing that I've received an unconfirmed report that Bill Levy has filed Chapter 11 on the La Entrada project. Does anyone have something to back this up? I'll be interested to know what happens next with the controversial development we spent so much of our energy on several years ago....[Update: here's a link to the SB Sound article].

21 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Levy Ritz was the top story in Daily Sound yesterday, and chased by Zate in Newspress today.

Is that enough confirmation?

The question is whether the token "dewatering" dirt moving actions are good enough to meet the city deadline of December 12 before all the city entitlements expire.

11/29/2006 8:01 AM  
Blogger Sara De la Guerra said...

Thanks! Missed the paper yesterday...

11/29/2006 8:31 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Before Wendy there was Bill Levy, the sue happy moron. Bankruptcy is not a good omen. Incompetency is why they don't do the news, but I can see why she'd be in denial. Maybe he's a old chum of Nipper's. If you don't do celebrity, Rob Lowe, you wouldn't do your friends.

11/29/2006 11:08 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That is so nice that Jimmy's will be kept.
I have always enjoyed going there since i was a small child. I was such a nice place with very friendly staff and had interesting variety of plants.

11/29/2006 2:48 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

On the subject of neighborhood impacts, the citizens' concerns about having 115 condominiums built on less than six acres of land were virtually ignored by the City Council last Tuesday night. Only Das Williams managed to keep his integrity as well as his reputation as one who supports neighborhoods. He reminded Cottage officials that they don't run the city, and Brian Barnwell called them arrogant, but they won everything they wanted without a single concession to neighborhood concerns. Maybe they could take down the rent-a-fence on Anacapa and move it to Micheltorena instead--we're gonna need all the help we can get. Funny, according to the Sound today, Maybe the teachers--who don't make as much money--don't want workforce housing, but the nurses can't get enough of it...Unidev should hire Cottage.

11/29/2006 4:18 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Move all these people into the Miramar...

11/29/2006 7:34 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great! Jimmy's will be another empty downtown building serving the community paid for with City funds.

11/29/2006 7:48 PM  
Blogger Bill Carson said...

Das Williams was only playing to the neighborhood voters. His speech prior to his "no" vote on St. Francis was weak and passionless. If his heart was truly with the neighborhoods he could have (should have) said much, much more.

11/29/2006 8:24 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Regarding Montecito: Isn't Bob Collector the one who helped Rob Lowe get his mega-manse build in Montecito? And now he's driving Ty Warner out of town? This guy sounds like a lose cannon. Things are simpler here in Goleta. We don't have any "Goleta" Association but it sounds like that power hungry group should tied up in straight-jackets.

11/29/2006 8:34 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Goleta City Council was very pro-development in one area... south of Hollister in Old Town. $20 million dollars in State money is being spent down there to improve roads so that developers can build business parks in an environmentally sensitive area. But the work moved very slowly due to the unfamiliarity of the old Council with development... the desire was there, but the know-how was not. Eric Onnen stands to benefit a lot from the southern Old Town development, and he is a go-getter, so one can imagine the paving of the former wetlands down there will now go full speed ahead, not to mention the destruction of the last urban farming in Goleta Old Town.

11/30/2006 4:14 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

anonymous 4:41:"Eric Onnen stands to benefit a lot from the southern Old Town development,"

Document that statement here so we can watch to see if he does — or does not — recuse himself from any discussions/votes on issues that may have a direct impact on his business/his finances.

There will be no news in the Goleta - pro-development-council -NewsPress about anything negative concerning their endorsees. The blogs, this blog, will have to serve as watchdogs, alerting the public.

Anyone know what the cite is for the law requiring public officials to recuse themselves?

As for Das's vote, at least he voted for the neighborhoods. Undoubtedly, he, Helene Schneider and Brian Barnwell will be running for re-election and the campaign has already begun.

11/30/2006 7:12 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Only on Blogabarbara would a topic about TV listings and community TV morph into comments about Old Town Goleta overdevelopment and the rich vs. the superich in Montecito.

Where is Mike Pinto when we need him... too busy spinning for Levy?

11/30/2006 8:04 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Good to hear that Goleta has some sense and vision! Unlike SB

11/30/2006 8:28 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yup, Goleta will pave over its wetlands just like SB has... go look at an 1850 map of the SB waterfront.

Odd, seems to me this thread was initially about neighborhood impacts of development in the first place. This thread was never about TV listings.

Onnen owns the Airbus in Southern Goleta Old Town. Better roads down there increases his property value and help access for his buses. And who knows, when the business parks fill the old wetlands down there, perhaps the Council will let a contract to the Airbus for commuter buses.

Of course the development of Southern Old Town will spill traffic back up into Patterson Avenue, but PANA was always so apoplectic about perceived poor people moving into their neighborhood that a thousand cars at the Patterson/101 overcrossing from Southern Old Town development eluded their narrow minds.

Onnen was a staunch advocate of putting stop lights on Highway 217, so that traffic there could wait for his buses to enter the road from Southern Goleta Old Town.

12/01/2006 7:03 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Looks like the Southern Goleta Old Town road project only had $19.2 million or so, and then that has been lowered to the $18 million dollar range by a transfer to the Cathedral Oaks/101 interchange project.

Here is a 2005 document about the transfer.

So this $18 million will help pave the wetlands down in Southern Goleta Old Town, and qui bono? Not residents or PANA or HANA or even children in Old Town... the beneficiaries of that State of California largesse are property owners and business people down in Southern Goleta Old Town, like Eric Onnen. Certainly the wetlands down there don't gain, unless they like to asphalt coatings.

12/01/2006 11:52 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I say pave them over and get some tax payers using the land.

12/01/2006 12:09 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

speaking of neighborhood impact, Marshall Rose is stepping down. see Craig Smith or Daily Sound

12/01/2006 1:54 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Who's Marshall Rose?

12/04/2006 4:42 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yup, its particularly good to use State tax dollars to pave the wetlands. That way we can dig into our own pockets for bikepaths and buses.

12/04/2006 5:10 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

responding to anonymous @ 4:42 "Who's Marshall Rose"

Oh he's the "Independent" recent award winning community member. You might have recently seen him on TV at a hearing regarding the St. Francis over-development project.

Seated next to Cottage Parking and Hospital Systems CEO Ron Werft they are both collectively and simultaneously ruining multiple Santa Barbara neighborhoods. By the way I think he lives in Ty Warners neighborhood, Montecito.

Looks like Marshall Rose, with his son, is headed to Goleta where he can work his magic there bring bars, parking garages and of course overcrowding the surrounding neighborhoods.

12/05/2006 5:59 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I want someone to build me a house, or could I move into one of the many vacant stores on State Street?

12/06/2006 7:15 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home