To the editor: The aerial view of the Santa Barbara Outdated Mission accompanying the article on the eight-story housing undertaking proposed at 505 East Los Olivos St. is the right illustration of why this undertaking is a horrible thought (“State lawmakers focused a Santa Barbara improvement. Then got here the fallout,” Dec. 2).
Through the Jesusita hearth of 2009, the complete mountainous panorama behind the mission was in flames. Eighty houses and quite a few outbuildings had been destroyed. Individuals from as distant as Montecito had been compelled to evacuate by way of Foothill Highway and Mission Canyon Highway, which begins at East Los Olivos Avenue, basically the place the undertaking is proposed. Individuals had been additionally streaming down Mountain Drive and Alameda Padre Serra. Each start reverse the proposed undertaking website.
The mission was critically 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 throughout the 2015 “Mission Canyon Multimodal Enchancment Plan” proposal that East Los Olivos Avenue and Mission Canyon Highway can’t be widened. The reason being that this is able to create a choke level the place East Los Olivos Avenue curves across the mission and funnels right into a two-lane metropolis road. It’s higher to maintain visitors flowing at a continuing fee.
Now, think about a minimum of 250 further residents of the proposed eight-story undertaking attempting to evacuate on the intersection of East Los Olivos Avenue and Alameda Padre Serra.
As a result of Los Angeles just lately skilled devastating fires in Pasadena and Altadena with situations just like these in Santa Barbara, it’s simple to image how a tragedy might unfold right here close to the mission. The article’s important focus was the horrendous aesthetic nightmare of a undertaking 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 few of the assertions on this article that downplay the potential impacts of the “builder’s treatment” initiatives right here in Santa Barbara.
Firstly, though housing right here is problematic and painfully costly, and though there are actually rich enclaves, Santa Barbara will not be a strictly upscale group because the strains for the meals financial institution and different knowledge attest. It will’ve been good to see that perspective mirrored.
The proposed initiatives are so poorly and dangerously sited and designed that they’d by no means move muster underneath regular circumstances. In the meantime, town is transferring ahead with quite a few further housing initiatives by correct procedures.
The necessity for extra housing mustn’t allow the development of inappropriately sited and designed buildings that will degrade the character of our group. The {photograph} of the mission ought to have included an overlay of the proposed undertaking. That may say greater than my phrases can categorical.
Michele Harris Padron, Santa Barbara
