“It was an obstacle course,” said Goleta Planning Commissioner Rita Serotkin, describing a recent journey to pick up a student at Dos Pueblos High School. “Just trying to get across to the high school took 15 or 20 minutes, because cars are coming out of the parking lot and going into the parking lot … and then they’re backed up from the light at Storke — that’s a whole other issue,” she warned. “It’s a nightmare. And in all of that there’s the electric bikes, weaving in and out.”
Serotkin’s day-in-the-life came during the Goleta Planning Commission’s hearing for the Shelby development at 7400 Cathedral Oaks Road. The project looks to build 56 single-family homes about a quarter mile from the Glen Annie and Cathedral Oaks intersection and up the road from Dos Pueblos High. Serotkin voted to pass the project, despite her reservations, as did three of her colleagues, who noted the value to the community of the project’s 11 “affordable” homes. Commissioner Cary Penniman was the sole vote against.
Penniman questioned the sections of the environmental impact report (EIR) that had mentioned or omitted the implications of the 800-1,000 homes slated for Glen Annie Golf Club, which is next door to Shelby, just past city limits in the County of Santa Barbara. The 56 homes at Shelby alone would create a “significant and unavoidable” impact on traffic, according to the EIR, and the project is to compensate with sidewalks, bike lanes, a bus stop, and a school carpool plan. For Penniman, converting the golf course to homes was a foreseeable negative for circulation and fire that would have an untenable impact on public safety.
“Any new projects in El Encanto Heights are not safe to approve,” Penniman said, referring to the namesake creek and the foothills it flows through. Several public commenters agreed with him, one noting four fatal accidents between Winchester and Glen Annie in the past four years, and another calling the backup at the highway a “lethal hazard.”…