Goleta Turns Down Extra Property Assessment, for Now

The announcement Wednesday morning that Goleta received $14 million to complete a path through Old Town to the beach just proved a point raised the night before: The city has been paying a lot of attention to Old Town; what would an extra property tax add? If that were the question before the council, and it was not, the public’s answer was: the potential to become downtown Santa Barbara. And that was not considered to be a good thing.

The proposition before the City Council on Tuesday evening was whether to give $25,000 to study a Property Business Improvement District (PBID) for Old Town. The area had been the city’s downtown back when Hollister Road was the highway, and improvements were a high priority for residents in a survey the city conducted last year. Simultaneously, the Goleta Chamber of Commerce had been working out how to fund the need for cleaner streets and sidewalks, landscaping, and more parking. But few at Tuesday’s meeting supported the chamber, which has become inextricably linked with the explosive growth in Goleta.

The majority who had sent emails and came to comment expressed their love for Old Town the way it is and a fear that a PBID would lead to the unintended consequence of higher rents driving out current business tenants. Most acknowledged that some brainstorming on how to improve Old Town was in order, but a PBID was not the way to do it. Residents needed to be consulted, not just the property owners who would pay the tax. Worse yet, they said, larger property owners got a bigger vote, which felt unfair to smaller property owners.