Ancillary #10

The issue at hand is the incredibly hot housing market in Santa Barbara, California, and how the Great Resignation and Covid-19 are the driving forces for this. The great resignation was in large part due to a lack of flexibility, and Covid-19 led to a new, extremely flexible work style for people across the country, because many employees were forced to work remotely. People started to realize the flexibility their jobs offered, and started to move from big cities to suburbs and smaller towns. The move from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara is a perfect example of this: people are leaving their busy lives in the city to move to a nicer area for ¾ of the price, just because they’re able to work from home, or commute to work less often. This has made Santa Barbara a popular relocation destination, and there is simply not enough supply for this increased housing demand. Tyler Hayden, of the Santa Barbara Independent explains that, “evidence of Santa Barbara’s extreme housing shortage can be seen everywhere ― fast-climbing rent rates, a median home price that just jumped from $1.5 million to $2 million, and long commutes for those who can’t afford to live where they work.” Landowners throughout Santa Barbara agree more houses need to be built, but no definitive actions have been taken to truly fix the lack of housing available in Santa Barbara. An obvious solution to this issue is more vertical housing, specifically in downtown areas where taller buildings already exist. However, a huge issue with Santa Barbara laws is that no building can exceed a certain height, so the landowners are unable to build residential complexes that can house a lot of people. This law, and other reasons I am uncertain of, have led to little efforts to build housing in downtown Santa Barbara, and other areas. We can then compare the housing situation in Santa Barbara to a place like Boise, Idaho, which has become one of the hottest real estate markets in the nation as of late, or to Huntington Beach, California. Due to covid, both cities have had an influx of people moving there, and both cities were able to handle the situations well. We can look at what strategies worked to increase supply of housing in these cities, and implement similar strategies specific to Santa Barbara. Other potential solutions for Santa Barbara’s housing situation can be to build apartment complexes in the Goleta area, to revitalize a community that is mostly filled with older people or families. The city can even make efforts to pass laws preventing developers from buying and holding land in Santa Barbara. More research still has to be done to implement a clear prominent strategy, however there are many different approaches that can be taken to allow Santa Barbara to accommodate the influx of people moving from Los Angeles and other areas.