City Closes In on New Police Station Location

In hindsight, some amount of freak-out was inevitable. It was probably necessary. For the time being, however, it appears Santa Barbara City Hall has gotten the message loud and clear: Pay attention to the needs of the Farmers Market. But it’s also pretty clear that the Saturday Farmers Market’s days at its current location—the Cota Street commuter parking lot—are seriously numbered.

That parking lot has just been identified by City Hall as one of only two viable sites for what most everyone agrees is a desperately needed new police station. Of those two locations, the Cota Street lot is the only site that won’t require a vote of the people for development to take place. That qualifies the Cota Street lot as the prime candidate, if not the only one. Last Thursday, members of the city’s Planning Commission decreed the Cota Street site as the preferable location for the new police station. Their recommendation was advisory only. That decision belongs instead to the City Council, which is expected to decide the matter this coming January.

Noey Turk, president of the Santa Barbara Certified Farmers Market board of directors, said she was first notified big changes were looming just two days before the Farmers Market board meeting on October 27. “It was very sudden,” said Turk, who has been selling vegetables and plants at the Farmers Market for 26 years. “There’s just no way for that not to be sudden.”