December 21, 2024 – OAKLAND – California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Friday filed an amicus brief in the Santa Barbara. County Superior Court in support of a proposed affordable housing project in Goleta. Located in Santa Barbara County, Goleta is experiencing an acute housing shortage, and approximately 75% of lower-income renter households and 64% of lower-income owner households in Goleta are spending more than 30% of their income on housing. Housing is generally considered unaffordable when more than 30% of a household’s income goes toward housing costs. A housing development project by the Shelby Family Partnership would create 56 single-family homes, 13 of which would be affordable to lower-income households. On December 5, 2023, Goleta unlawfully refused to accept a preliminary application that simply sought to add the aforementioned affordable homes to the housing project under the Housing Crisis Act of 2019 (Senate Bill 330). The land at issue is not productive agriculturally and is surrounded on all sides by existing homes and residentially zoned land.