SANTA MARIA, Calif. – The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors is holding two separate special meetings this week to decide which sites it plans to rezone in order to meet state housing requirements.
California law requires that Santa Barbara County will need to have enough housing in order to meet its 2023-2031 Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA), which totals 5,664 units, including 1,522 units for the North County and 4,142 units for the South Coast.
The 2023-2031 Santa Barbara County Housing Element Update (HEU) has identified 18 potential rezone sites in the North County and 18 potential rezone sites and nine County-owned sites in the South Coast.
“What we’re doing right now is we have to rezone properties because there’s so many houses that we have to build,” said Steve Lavagnino, Santa Barbara County District Four Supervisor and Board Chair. “There’s not all that residential property, so we’re looking at, rezoning commercial property and rezoning agricultural property and figuring out where are we going to put all these new houses.”