Dec. 4, 2025 7 AM PT
To the editor: The aerial view of the Santa Barbara Outdated Mission accompanying the article on the eight-story housing venture proposed at 505 East Los Olivos St. is the right illustration of why this venture is a horrible concept (“State lawmakers targeted a Santa Barbara development. Then came the fallout,” Dec. 2).
Through the Jesusita hearth of 2009, the whole mountainous panorama behind the mission was in flames. Eighty properties and quite a few outbuildings were destroyed. Folks from as far-off as Montecito had been compelled to evacuate through Foothill Street and Mission Canyon Street, which begins at East Los Olivos Road, basically the place the venture is proposed. Folks had been additionally streaming down Mountain Drive and Alameda Padre Serra. Each start reverse the proposed venture website.
The mission was significantly threatened by this fireplace and was saved as a result of the erratic 40 to 60-mph winds shifted on the final second.
At conferences and workshops that I attended on the time, visitors engineers testified in the course of the 2015 “Mission Canyon Multimodal Enchancment Plan” proposal that East Los Olivos Road and Mission Canyon Street can’t be widened. The reason being that this might create a choke level the place East Los Olivos Road curves across the mission and funnels right into a two-lane metropolis avenue. It’s higher to maintain visitors flowing at a continuing fee.
Now, think about no less than 250 further residents of the proposed eight-story venture attempting to evacuate on the intersection of East Los Olivos Road and Alameda Padre Serra.
As a result of Los Angeles not too long ago skilled devastating fires in Pasadena and Altadena with situations just like these in Santa Barbara, it’s straightforward to image how a tragedy may unfold right here close to the mission. The article’s essential focus was the horrendous aesthetic nightmare of a venture of this scale looming over the historic mission. The fireplace hazard is equally horrendous.
Susan Chamberlin, Santa Barbara
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To the editor: Permit me to dispute a number of the assertions on this article that downplay the potential impacts of the “builder’s treatment” tasks right here in Santa Barbara.
Firstly, though housing right here is problematic and painfully costly, and though there are definitely rich enclaves, Santa Barbara is just not a strictly upscale neighborhood because the traces for the meals financial institution and different information attest. It might’ve been good to see that perspective mirrored.
The proposed tasks are so poorly and dangerously sited and designed that they’d by no means go muster beneath regular circumstances. In the meantime, the town is transferring ahead with quite a few further housing tasks via correct procedures.
The necessity for extra housing shouldn’t allow the development of inappropriately sited and designed buildings that might degrade the character of our neighborhood. The {photograph} of the mission ought to have included an overlay of the proposed venture. That will say greater than my phrases can categorical.
Michele Harris Padron, Santa Barbara
