Santa Barbara Talks with Josh Molina

Santa Barbara Talks: Ed Lenvik Talks Future of Santa Barbara's State Street

Architect Ed Lenvik talks the future of Santa Barbara' State Street and the promenade, including his views on cars, bikes, parklets, pedestrians whether to become "curbless." He also discusses retail, the "restaurant mafia," and his views on the the progress of the State Street Advisory Committee, a group he sits on. Lenvik, a member of the Historic Landmarks Commission, pulls no punches in his assessment of the city's progress on State Street over the past three years, while also showing a love for the city and a desire to make it better. This is a deep-dive into the state of State Street in Santa Barbara and what can be done to save. Joshua Molina is a journalist and podcaster who hosts Santa Barbara's No. 1 Podcast, Santa Barbara Talks with Josh Molina. He creates compelling conversations about housing, education, business, culture and all of the issues that we share in this community. Consider a contribution by visiting www.santabarbaratalks.com and please subscribe to the Santa Barbara Talks YouTube Channel.

Duration:: 58m
Broadcast on:: 28 Jun 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Thank you. Welcome to Santa Barbara talks with Josh Molina. It's such a pleasure today to be here with architect Ed Lendvik to talk about state street and the state street master plan and this meeting that we had this week about the future of state street. And Ed is on the historic landmarks commission and a long time Santa Barbara architect in the history of everything that has happened here in this city and important figures so I'm so honored to be able to talk to him and have a conversation about everything state street and a little bit on his background and how are you doing today. Good, glad to be here, glad to be here. Thank you appreciate it. Let's dive right in. There was a state street master plan committee meeting recently a few days ago. And I covered it I wrote about it took a bunch of photos. And one of the things that I felt was a little frustrating from a journalistic perspective was hearing only from some members of the committee and in some cases not even members of the committee. But staff members of the city. And I think that that discussion is so important that we want to hear what the advisory committee members say. There was a break in format because there were these small groups. And then there was a report out from those groups. And I understand there's still another meeting to come and there's still stuff to be at but in terms of this process. I wanted to hear more and I wanted to hear more from the members and especially you Ed so let's talk about state street and the master plan. What are your thoughts based off of the renderings that were presented the meeting, but would you have said if you had an opportunity to talk at that meeting. Well, if you don't mind I'm going to step back on this process slightly. And you interrupt me at any point and say let's go someplace else but you know we've been at this for what three years now or more. It started out, obviously due to the pandemic and the closure of restaurants. So the city did the right thing by providing an opportunity for restaurants to operate. Those streets. And from that, you know, grew this idea that state streets should really become a promenade. And the city went out to, with request for proposals from various planning groups. And, you know, the new communities and arrived at the selection of one, and that was probably, you know, a good two and a half three years ago. And in essence, in my opinion, nothing of significance has happened since that time. We've had a numerous community meetings, really good involvement of, of community members. They have offered a lot to the discussion and given a lot of information to staff and to MIG. MIG then came up with a scheme, which they presented to us, which. Went nowhere. It did not represent Santa Barbara. And there was a, an outcry among many of the state's read advisory committee members that the thing is going the wrong direction. Around the same time, we had a presentation from the transportation department. And it became, it was revealed to us that, that the state street must have bikes on it. It is a major corridor for, for bikes, and there was red little we can do about it. Again, that was new information to a lot of the state tree advisory committee members, and was not well received. Since that point in time, I don't believe we have made the kind of progress that was intended. When the city signed an agreement with MIG, it was to do a master plan, but include information on, on housing and on state street, and how you handle drainage on say street, how you handle utilities infrastructure. What do you, what about the retail on state street? And it went down the list. I mean, we had a presentation from MIG's real estate expert about, you know, opinions on what needed to be done to make real estate viable. But what happened, in my opinion, is the process was hijacked by three distinct groups. The restaurant owners hijacked a lot of the process. And they recognize that one of the restaurant owners, when getting up before the state tree advisory committee in the public said, yeah, we're known as the restaurant mafia. You may recall that term being used. The other, the other hijacking was by the bike coalition. The bike people came out of the woodwork and were, were uncompromising in their demands for bike access on state street. Uncompromising. The third group to hijack the, the planning process, where the I want to walk on state street. I want to walk on the middle of state street. I don't want to be bothered by cars, get rid of cars, you know, so on and so forth. So that now became a, those three issues became really wrapped up in the planning process. MIG went away and I'm not sure where they are. The staff then started planning and asked a group of local planners architects to contribute free their efforts to come up with a scheme that might be workable. And that's where we are now is staff has put together. Some well defined transport mobility solutions for state street. Mobility, including walking, biking, you know, no cars, so on and so forth. And that's what was discussed at the meeting on Wednesday. And you're right. They, we broke up after a presentation by staff. We broke up into three groups, limited the discussion only to the state street advisory committee members and the support staff. Although the public, you and others could hang around the edge and, and hope that, you know, a little bit of the chum that flew off could be, could be devoured by you. The, the group I was in, I think came up with some very, very good ideas. The other two groups were kind of milk toast. They're there. I didn't hear positive, positive feedback from the other groups. Now, staff has got to take all three of those groups and bring something together that they can bring back to us. Probably early next week for a vote. What does the state advisory committee think about. You know, this is that or the other thing on the border block of state street. And so we're going to, we're going to vote on something. Um, which. Then we'll go back to the staff and to the free architects to come up with a more detailed plan. I think there is a lot of, a lot of, a lot of potential for dissatisfaction among all groups with that process, but we're going to go through it. So am I happy with what happened on Wednesday, not particularly, do I think we're going to get something good out of it. I'm hopeful, but I'm also concerned that we might not. Right. Yeah, and your history was was great and it was perfect. And I don't know where my G is. I think the contract was originally not to exceed a certain amount. So maybe, maybe they just sort of stop paying or, or maybe they're working only behind the scenes on, on some stuff with staff. Ed, let's start with the big question of cars on state street. Do you want cars on state street, you mentioned the bike people and the anti car groups who, who, who basically just flat out say the whole promenade from 400 to 13 should be, I guess, they even said 400 but basically all the way to 1300 block carless. I'm compromising was the word you used to your vision, do you think cars should come back, is there a way to slice it up so we have cars on some blocks. What's your answer to that. I don't, I don't believe that the promenade needs cars, at least from the standpoint of its long term and final use and design and use. Does that mean there should be no cars. Next year, if the city consoles chooses simply to. Develop one small area, let's say the delegate the delegate core area and leave the entertainment area which is, you know, north of the. Internet under block leave that until later, the plan is, is together, but I don't know that it's wise to leave that. Upper area. So under utilized that it becomes. A problem and, and if we spend a lot of money. On, on the, on the core, the delegate for area and, and maybe the. The 400 500 block or whatever 600 block. We've still got, you know, we still got. Tens and tens and tens of minutes of dollars. We got to come up with the whole thing. And I, so I could see where the console might say. We're going to, we're going to concentrate on, on, on a portion of this. We have the whole plan, but we're in the country on a portion and we're going to try to get back to where we were pre pandemic on a portion. A lot of people aren't going to like that. And the console is going to, you know, take a lot of heat on that. But. If we don't have the money to do the whole thing and we don't know what the cost is. Nothing gets done. So the console in their wisdom is going to have to take and select a specific area. To develop fully. And I believe that will probably be the, the, the delegate core area. The old, you know, don't center of town area. And then the question is, what do we find acceptable for the balance of it for the next five years or 10 years. Right. I don't know. I would like not to have cars there. But I am also very concerned that we end up with a dead, dead, dead town. The idea of. A lot of. I have no problem with that. I think the problem is going to be that you, you cannot have pedestrians want and, and, and bicycles. If you have a carbellous situation, that means that, that anybody can wander off what might be considered a sidewalk. Into the traffic lane for bikes. And that is not, that is not legal. That's not logical. The city of Ventura went through that about 15 months ago and they backed off bikes and pedestrians. Mixing very quickly. And it's, you may have seen that in the, in the Ventura paper, you know, about a year ago or so. You're not going to get that. Now, if the city is able to say, in our core area, in the delegate core area, we're going to have flat and flexible, no curves. We're also going to require that bikes be walked in that area. Then that works, then that works. You know, maybe they might say, well, bikes can ride through there, you know, before. Then o'clock in the morning or, you know, whatever, but you can't, you cannot mix bikes and pedestrians and you've got to find some way to control that. Talk to me a little bit about the bike situation. When I'm down there, of course, I love it, right? I mean, I love it's open. You can take my, my, my kids down there. It's fun, right? I get it. But when those bikes on the, especially the e-bike start whizzing by in the middle of the street, it makes me just want to walk on the sidewalk. And that I thought was not the plan. The plan was to open up the street so people could be everywhere and not worry about getting hit or having near misses. What should Santa Barbara do with these, these bikes? I mean, I guess separating is a start, but should we have e-bikes? What do you think of this? I don't think we can eliminate the e-bikes. The police department said, yeah, give us, we can, we can handle it for two blocks. We can't handle it for eight blocks. I think the idea that the promenade represents a throng of people walking down the middle of the street is the wrong vision. When you're out there today, people are walking in the sidewalks. They're walking next to the storefronts. There's a lot of interest in the storefronts there. They're walking next to the storefronts. That's what they want to be. My wife and I were down there Tuesday morning and had coffee in a pastry at Anderson's and we're sitting there watching the world go by. Beautiful. It was enjoyable. I think in the half hour we were sitting there, we saw maybe three, four, five people walking down the middle of the street. We saw a number of people kitty corner across from Figueroa Street over to CVS, but you did not, you do not see people walking down the middle of the street. You see a lot of people in sidewalks, even on Saturdays and Sundays. You see a lot of people in sidewalks. And I think, I think our promenade should be viewed as sidewalks. And in the middle of the street, give it to the bikers, give it to the fire and police department, give it to the service workers that need to be down there. But don't assume you're going to walk down the middle of the street and be comfortable and safe. Right. On the promenade is walking down the sidewalk area. And that's where it really works well. And you don't have to pave the whole, the whole, you know, 80 feet wide and brick or whatever it's going to be. You pave the sidewalk areas and you devote other pavement trails to where the bikes and tricks and so on and so forth. So I think the bikes are going to be there and I can get rid of them, except maybe as is advocated by the staff. In the, in that governmental sectionary where they got to get off and walk them walking. They want to have too much other activities going on in there to permit on controlled bikes. One, bring you through it. You know, I was talking to Cass Ensberg, an architect, and she has been very vocal about mobility issues, people with disabilities, senior citizens, people who use a chair to get around, you know, she's talked about her mother. And those are, those are real issues. And what we hear at the meetings are generally younger people talking about the way they move around in the world. And that's normal. We all talk from a perspective of where we're at, where we are at in life at that time. But the city has to make a decision that fits the most amount of people. When you, you know, when you're in that chair in those meetings and you hear the, you know, the organizations, the strong towns, the representatives sort of say that it's a climate change issue and we need to get out of our cars. And the best way to do this is to get people moving on bikes and no acknowledgement of other people in the world. Can you talk a little bit about that? I mean, you're, you're of that demographic, you're of that age group, well, you know, that's, that's a real thing, you know, I'm kind of in the middle, but I, I, I get it too. It's like, we can't plan for just some people, right? What are your thoughts on it? Well, exactly. My, I, I might be more older than, than a lot of people. I don't know. I'll let, I'll let the world figure it out. I graduated from Santa Barbara high in 1959. So let them calculate how old I am. I'm not going to ride my bike downtown. I rode my bike a lot when I was in my 30s and 40s and 50s. I was a, I was a, you know, a bad guy on a bike. I put down 100 miles easily on a single day. I can't do that today. Most of the people who are, you know, upper age group aren't going to want to do that. As a matter of fact, most people in the, in the upper age group probably don't want to walk more than two blocks. If I know I'm going to CVS pharmacy downtown, I'll park in the parking lot. I'll walk in, walk through. I might go on to State Street, walk down a couple of blocks and then two blocks back. That's four blocks. That's as much as I want to spend walking around. I don't think there are a lot of people who want to walk down 10 blocks and back 10 blocks. Aren't a lot of people do not. Yeah, younger people are people that are pushing the stroller and do people who got their kid on a little bike do, but it's not the great bulk of people. And how this project is funded, whatever it's cost is going to be. If they've got to go to, to the voters, the property owners for a bond issue to raise, to raise the taxes on my house, on your house, they've got to have a project that is appealing to those bond to those property owners who are willing to vote for that bond issue. Right now, I don't see it. We saw a woman, I forget where it was, city council or whatever recently, talking about something else, getting up public speaking. And she said, I wanted to digress. I want to let you know that my friends and my neighbors want to see this state. So you put back the way it was so we can get down there. And then she was her time is gone. There are a lot of people out there, you know, up east side, you know, lower east side, you know, wherever they are, who have got to drive over to get over there. And then are happy to walk two or three blocks, get a restaurant, a cup of coffee, pastry, I mean, whatever, but you're not going to find that bikers are coming from upper upper east side and downtown. And you got to write your bike back, you know, not going to happen. Yeah, and, and let's talk, you mentioned another group, the restaurants sort of hijacking this process. What do you think, you know, they're obviously they want the promenade, they want the parklets, they want the outdoor dining. Obviously was necessary during COVID. They've said people want to eat outside. It's, you know, lifestyle thing. It's, you know, what they do in Spain and Italy and they excite all these European places. You know, they're clearly benefit from having the additional space. And it's fine. I like eating outdoors too. But what can you say about the restaurants role in this. I think the restaurants and the bars are going to be an important component of the success of portions of the state street promenade. A promenade design has got to increase the width of the walks. In other words, there may be a 12 foot walk now and it can be expanded to 16 foot and on both sides and still have 20 foot in the middle or more. That additional flat sidewalk area will be more than enough for outside dining for easy outside dining and the still preserve a handicap accessible pathway on the sidewalk. It can be done. Now, some of the restaurants right now can't do that because the sidewalk is too narrow. Now, as part of a, as part of a promenade plan will be to get people into the promenade on the sidewalk, not get them into the promenade in the middle of the street. When I go downtown and wander around, I want to look in windows. I want to see, I want to see what the color of socks that stores got in there or whatever. And you can't do that from the middle of the street. So we want to find a way to make the businesses attractive and active and successful. And that means we got to have people walking by with our nose on the glass. Yeah, let me ask you this question. There's so much. Tension over retail, the property owners. There's a group of people who say, we're never going to revitalize state street by bringing back cars. They say, even before COVID and the closure retail was suffering. They say, we need different kinds of businesses in there. And if you bring housing, if you bring people downtown, then all of a sudden it's going to electrify the commercial real estate there. And then there's some others who say, we need cars, you know, Jim Canell, others have said, I've talked to these national, you know, developers, mall retailers, and they say they won't come to state street if it's close to cars. And that, that, you know, finding out a way to spark retail on state street. I don't think anyone has the definitive answer. But what do you think? How do we create something where people who are down there are not just eating and strolling, but are actually shopping, you know, in places other than just antique alley. You know, I've, I've said for quite a while that there are probably four or five things that need to be done for state street to be successful. The first is a retail has got to be improved. It's got to be improved. And, and how do you do that? Well, you make sure that you keep the street clean. The, the homeless or the vagrants or whatever have got to be moved along. I remember one day I was down state street sitting and having a cup of coffee and, and the city had put out. Wouldn't wouldn't lounge chairs, you know, beach chairs or whatever. And, and there was, they were being occupied by homeless people. One guy was sitting there with the shirt off rubbing his back, you know, and well, why is the tourists going to want to come over and sit in that chair. So the city has got to clean up downtown. They've got to provide more lighting downtown lighting is a very, very important part of safety and comfort. So the downtown organization has got to tell these vacant store owners, you must clean up your front even if it's vacant, you must find a way to finish or furnish your window. So people aren't looking in at a, at a, at a destroyed interior. You've got to make sure that the city knows that you're anxious to get tenants in there. I don't know what the city is doing right now to bring tenants downtown. But you, you know, you've got to find a way to keep this active. Now, do you go so far as to tax vacant space. Well, I've had the kid for that and been told you can't do it. But I know some cities that are. You tax a vacant space, you force the rent in that space down to a point where a young person who wants to open a business selling candlestick holders or whatever can do it, you can afford to do it. You can't do it at at four and five dollars a square foot, you know, maybe you can do it at a bucket square foot. But you've got to find a way to activate the real estate, activate another question or item. The city uses the word activate numerous times in the presentation that we have. What does activation mean? Well, you got to have an activity down there. You got to have, you know, bands or jugglers or, you know, activation is very, very expensive. The executive director of the downtown organization spoke to us once and said it's the most expensive time involved thing that she has to do activation. What does activation mean? Well, it could be a trolley running up and down that street continuously. A trolley. Well, also that's interesting. I can jump on that trolley and go down four blocks and come back. That's activation. And unfortunately, our cars in the street as well. And if you if we need to activate the street and not have it be dead. I'm afraid that, well, we don't want cars. We're going to, we've got to consider what needs to be done to attract that retail business. You need retail business going downtown. You need more people downtown. You need living downtown housing downtown. Those are two of the main things. If you got housing downtown. I, a lot of things are going to change real fast. And maybe that'll happen. I would hate to think. I would hate to think that Macy's is driven out of outer state street. And decides, hmm, we need to be in Santa Barbara. Let's go back to state street where we were. Wouldn't that be awful. I mean, there goes your housing, but Macy's, you know, I don't know. Maybe they don't have a title to that lease any longer. I don't know. Yeah. But activation to be really, really important. One of the things that the group I was in on Wednesday, advocated for was a trolley. Yeah. And the staff is against that. I don't know why. But staff is against the trolley. It could be on a rails. It could be on rubber tires. It could be on whatever. It could be up and down. It could be up and turn around and come back. You need to activate the street. Yeah. And that's what's, that's what's critical right now. You need to activate the street. If a, if a potential tenant comes along and looks at, you know, putting two or three, uh, uh, so reference together to make it a larger one. And there are bumps in each of the entries. And, and the only act activity in the street is more bumps. You know, they're not going to stay there. They don't want to go to coast really rude. You know, they want to go to the right or plaza. They want to go to any place where there's people, people, people, people and activity. Right. Yeah. And let's talk about the committee. You mentioned what you were your group and what you advocated for. Uh, the work of the committee itself. You said, you know, not a lot has been done. Uh, it's kind of a big committee, right? It's a lot of people on this committee. And I guess the idea that Dave Davis envisioned was to have everybody represented. But, you know, if you get too big, it gets, it cuts, gets unwieldy. Um, what do you think of the committee and its makeup? Yeah, I don't know that it was Dave Davis's decision. Okay. So it's a decision to have the committee the size that it is. Okay. Um, the staff may have had input on it, but Dave Davis was simply another committee member that was. Yeah, probably pre program to be elected, uh, you know, the, the chair. But the, the, you know, the, the committee. In three years. Has not taken one vote on anything. So how much advisory are we? If we have not taken one vote, they're now trying to get a vote on this last. You know, mobility, you know, discussion issue coming up and maybe we'll vote next week. But so far, in two or three years, we've not voted. We're not much of advisory at all. Not much advice. Yes. Unfortunately, it's too large. But I don't think there's any choice. I mean, the council had to get as many as many people in there to represent. Um, you know, stakeholders as they possibly could. And I think they're probably. At the right amount, but we have not been used. We have not been asked to take a vote. And that's the unfortunate part. Uh, you know, a vote on how should we handle stormwater? Well, give us some options and then let us vote. That doesn't mean that that's where it'll end up being, but at least we have given input or give us some options on how to get more housing downtown. And that was one of the charges for my gene. What do you, what do you do to get more housing downtown? Well, you must revise the zoning ordinances. That's number one, you may have to revise the sustainability. Uh, the creeks division requirements. I mean, where are you going to take and put water downtown Santa Barbara? If you're, if you're building a new, a new two and three stories above an existing where you've got to now take and capture all the water that falls on that existing roof. Even though it's nothing's changed, you got to capture that, treat it and then get it into the system. You know, the only way that can be done is if it is a community wide venture using state street. We've never had that kind of input. We've never had to raise your hand voting and what should be done. That's what's needed is we need to have, we need to have some questions asked some votes taken and check that box off and move on. Yeah, incremental progress and then they were going to try to do everything in less than three hours on Wednesday. Um, since Anthony, grumbine and the architects local architects became involved. Are we in a better spot with them doing it than before? What is your take on that pivot, the city of Santa Barbara did to bring the locals in. No, we're not in a better spot. Uh, we have Anthony is a, you know, a great leader. He's got some, maybe some good designers there, but. These people have not designed pedestrian malls and my G has, and my G maybe should have hired Anthony and some of the others, but I don't know that we are getting anything out of them, which is unique. I don't know that. I don't know that the mobility questions that staff brought before us in written form. Came out of Anthony in that group. I believe that the mobility questions were raised and directed by staff and then Anthony's group rendered to match that. Um, no offense meant these guys there, they're, they're, they got their heart and Santa Barbara. They're, they're devoted. They put a tremendous amount of hours in for free, but you know, when you, when you, when you pay nothing and get it for free. How valuable is it? What's it worth to you? I think that we could have started off with these eight guys three or four years ago and had a beautiful plan. There's too much, there's too much involved in planning this promenade. I'd say traffic, drainage, housing, in a cloth economy. Yeah, good, good, good. But on the list that MIG had to perform on, and it's tremendous. You know, I don't know who's doing that today. Staff doing that Anthony is group on doing that. No one knows what the cost is. Yeah. So at the last meeting, the one, not the one recently, but the one before you had said, you know, this should come back to the HLC many times. This should go to the HLC. It hasn't been in the HLC. This is, you know, a process issue. And now we're looking at a situation where. You know, there was this meeting recently, they're going to continue it and make a final vote. Apparently soon. The council will eventually weigh in the HLC from the beginning has not been part of this process. When they closed it during COVID, of course, Rob Dayton. You know, it's always like the city has always been like, well, you got to go through the design review boards, but when it's a city decision, it's like, they're going to take too long. It's like the big irony. You know, it's like you're bypassing these own groups that you believe makes Annabarber better. So it never went to HLC, the closure. Can you talk a little bit about the process here and HLC and just the fact that this cherished institution is was bypassed in this whole process. Yeah. You couldn't find a more devoted and competent group of people than currently are sitting on the HLC. I mean, they have, they have committed to seeing something really great happened with every project that comes before us. I don't know that the mobility issue is an HLC issue as such. I don't know that HLC really cares or doesn't care whether or not just curbs and no curbs. I could be corrected and all this stuff. Cass, Cass, Annsburg may say, yeah, you're wrong. But I just, you know, the paving the trail, I'm sure we're going to be real concerned about that or the, or the paving pattern or the, or the geometrics of the pattern will be concerned about because that's what is historic and we're concerned about. But whether or not, whether or not the, you know, the street is 20 foot wide or 22 foot wide or there's carbon no curve. I don't think HLC is concerned about that. Now, if you're all of a sudden advocating that the 20 foot wide mandated portion curve and do whatever. Well, what is the basis in, in historic architecture, Spanish Mediterranean for that curving and winding boulevard. It's probably not a lot there. But I don't know that I think HLC is really concerned that we have been purposely legislatively avoided on what's happening downtown from the standpoint of the parklets in particular. It just, you know, and the barriers. I mean, there's, there's no reason to think that we couldn't have contributed some real meaningful design ideas on barriers and whatever, as opposed to the public works department and fire department saying, you know, you're going to use these Cape Cape barriers period. No discussion. Well, you know, there's a lot of discussion in Santa Barbara. It happens all the time. I don't walk down the street that I'm not, you know, accosted by someone who has an opinion. I was with my dog for a walk up behind Sheffield River this morning, and a woman I've known and been who's been involved in the community for forever. It's never stopped me and chatted and, you know, keep doing it, you know, keep doing it. When I, I don't mean to drag your ass here, but you got a lot of time left. When I started business in Santa Barbara, and I own my own business for 35 years or more before I sold it and retired. There was not a lot of a lot of excitement about HLC's involvement in downtown. Yeah. As a matter of fact, it was an advisory committee until a charter, you know, I don't forget when it was 80s, maybe it became a charter. But what I can do is look back on my time as an ABR member. Every year, every couple years, the stuff that was getting built was better than the year before. And that was, when I was on ABR, the city really improved itself over time. And the same as through today, we are getting some beautiful buildings downtown, just strikingly beautiful buildings downtown that we should give a lot of credit to the Landmarks Commission for. They do a good job. Now, you know, can we do better? You know, can things move along faster? I was downtown the other day, and there was a red construction building from tag on a window stop construction. You are making changes to the exterior facade that were not approved by Landmarks. Well, now that guy has stopped construction. So he probably is not going to get back to constructing in that building a month, a couple months, because he or his architect or somebody forgot to talk to landmarks. They're going to blame landmarks for the delay. There ought to be a way to get that guy's project back in almost immediately. The city should say, you know, the public, the planning director, you know, to say, get that thing into landmarks today on special provisions. We want to make sure that guy is under construction again, fast. But it was in like the 1000 block or nine in a block on the window stop construction, no HLC approval. Well, all of a sudden HLC is a bad guy. And we shouldn't be. We want to see this thing move ahead as quickly as possible. And I looked at that storefront tonight. What could be done unless you tell the whole damn thing out and put a, you know, a modern storefront in there. It's beautiful. We got it. We got to find a way to work with with the businesses downtown to not cause delays, not make things more difficult for them. We got to find ways to make it easier for them to want to be downtown Santa Barbara. Definitely. The park lead issue was a big deal with HLC and kind of this mess. And I guess we put art now on the K rail on ortega. It's a temporary thing, but it's, it's better than just what was there before, right, better than nothing. Maybe, maybe, maybe, but again, but again, see the attorney says, HLC, you have no control over art period. So we saw it as a courtesy. Yeah, he's going to be done because the arts board or whatever commission, you know, whatever freedom of speech, you know, you can't, you can't judge art. And therefore we could not, we could not have anything to say about those panels and their artwork. Just short term, it'll go away, you know, life, life goes on. Hey, let me talk to you a little bit about you and your background. You said you had a business for 35 years and then sold it. You know, my interaction with you has been mostly observing you over the years. Can you talk to me a little bit about your Santa Barbara story, how you came to Santa Barbara and sort of how you got to where you're at. Sure. I was born and raised in Minnesota. So I can talk to you in Minnesota if you want. But my parents got tired of the weather. And my mom and dad opened a hardware store in Galita. Western Idol. And so I went took my last year of high school in Santa Barbara high. My brother is two years younger than me was San Marcos. I went to Cal Poly and got my degree in architecture. My wife and I moved to Los Angeles and we worked, I worked on there for about three years. And along with a good friend Don Sharp. We decided that we wanted to get out of LA. So where are we from? Well, Santa Barbara, Don Sharp is from Santa Barbara. I picked up my wife and kids and we came up here and I got a job. And we just grew with Santa Barbara, bought a house, bought a lot, you know, build a house, so on and so forth, grew with Santa Barbara. Made a lot of contacts and friends up here. There was a time when I could walk down State Street. And in a couple of blocks, I would meet three or four people I knew. Shake hands, talk, pet 'em on the back, chat and wind on the block, meet more people. They were, you know, being involved in the community, being a small community. It was so wonderful. It was so wonderful. You walked on the street. Now you don't know people and it's unfortunate, but that's a big talent now. I got on to the, I was asked by Mayor Firestone. If I would want to, if I would fill out a term on ABR from somebody who retired. So I asked my Boston if he objected to that and he said, no, we get on that board. You know, so that's when I started my involvement with the city of Santa Barbara from the standpoint of design review. I served on ABR for a lot of years. I was one, I served on the first environmental review committee for the city of Santa Barbara before they took it all into staff. I've served on the county design review board. I've been on numerous committees, you know, that the council's set up to do whatever during, during time. And now I'm on landmarks and I really enjoy landmarks because it is being an older person. I appreciate that style of architecture. And I know where it's coming from and what you can do to make it really successful. So I, you know, I, my firm. Basically did work in the, in the tri-county area. We were out of state occasionally and. But basically the tri-county area. We got a lot of good clients here. We did the Ralph's market on a career, on career street, for instance. Yeah. I can point, you know, dozens of buildings around town. We did. None of them have a, you know, a name on them because they're, they pretty much fit in well in the neighborhood. Yeah. Office building or, or a residential project or whatever, they fit into the neighborhood. And that's one of the things I, I, and I think a lot of others on the landmark commission, as well as ABR strive for is making sure that what you're building. Has at least some connection with the neighborhood from sampling of style. Um, scale. We all recognize it's going to scale is going to change. We're going to get much taller and bigger, particularly downtown. And I think a lot of us are in favor of that. A lot of us would love to see, you know, three and four straight buildings on state three to run. On Korea or on. Chappala or whatever, we would like to see that, that dense or building downtown. And it can be done and it can be done well. And there are architects in town right now. We're doing big buildings downtown and doing them very, very well. And we should, we should appreciate that and encourage that. Yeah. I retired in 2010, sold my business and have been just irritating people since then. Well, the Ralph's is like one of the nicest supermarkets in the country and people think it's housing or a hotel or they think it's something other than a place you buy groceries because it's, it's so well done and just looks like it blends in there, you know, in Santa Barbara. And we were told, we were told by someone that when it was under construction, someone stopped and said, is that the mission. Yeah, exactly. So, so, so, yeah. And so, how is Santa Barbara changed in good ways and bad ways and you know we hear constantly this generational battle there's this, you know, new blood of people coming in, you know, UCSB grads moving in, they want to be able to live downtown. To approach these things as though they're the first time, whoever the first people who ever tried to consider these issues of every generation goes through these issues. How is Santa Barbara changed from from the time you started until now. Yeah, one of the things that I encountered when I formed my business and was moving on is that a lot of the people that I knew and we're working with war. And so, you know, a lot of the community organizations were where you found friends and business associates and whatever. And I don't know that today, those organizations are grabbing the young people off the street like they did in the, in the 70s and 80s. Because, for instance, I was involved with the Center for JC is a lot. And, and that, that organization, in essence, built the zoo. And, you know, that kind of, that kind of contribution to the community and that kind of involvement working on weekends with others and I think you walked on the street and the guy that you were digging and dishes with on, on Saturday is the guy you meet on the street on Tuesday. It's a, it's a great way to do things and I'm concerned that what's happening today is we're building housing. One bedroom studios, some twos, whatever. For people that aren't going to engage themselves with the community. If we were building two bedrooms and three bedrooms and maybe more. Now we got families downtown. And that's good. And, and, and those people are going to want to be part of the community because their kids are here. But if all you got is studios and one bedrooms and people who are now, you know, working in a service industry industries or whatever, they're not going to be. I think now they're not going to be as involved in those community organizations that were so powerful and well respected when I was kind of moving through the my younger years. And that's one of the big differences that I see. Yeah. And, you know, Santa Barbara's always had a problem with homelessness, unhoused community, the term changes. I grew up here, you know, I remember lots of homeless, unhoused individuals over the years. It's always sort of been that way. I know that a lot of the commercial retailers say it's much worse. What's your perspective is it is it much worse now. We have a lot more awareness we have housing that's being built for them. Has that issue changed dramatically for you. I really, I really am not that observant of that. Yes, you do see them downtown. I don't let them bother me. I don't think they are bothering the tourists as such. I also see one guy running down the street yelling and screaming and jumping over down using a lot of foreletter words but that's not, you know, that's not happening that often. I believe the police department is doing what they can logically do to maintain some kind of control of that downtown. And I don't, I don't, you know, it's, you wonder how come there are no homeless people out at the Glita shopping complex. You wonder why there's no homeless people at the right applause. Why, you know, Coast Village Road. I mean, apparently there aren't that many of any at all there. What is different about that. And why are those places so attractive as opposed to State Street. I, you know, if you could transfer a little of that, you know, it would be a wonderful thing for State Street. I don't know that the homeless are the only thing that's contributed to that. And it's amazing how much effort this community has put into housing them. I think Santa Barbara's housing authority is probably preeminent in the state from the standpoint of getting housing built, getting it built inexpensively. And oftentimes when a project by the housing authority comes before HLC for approval. We are told by, I forget the executives name. We're told, we're thankful that HLC has given us input because we want to make sure that we are a good neighbor, and they're building good buildings, and we'll design buildings. And that's, that's appreciated. Yeah, Rob, Rob Fredericks, probably your reference. Yeah. So, so as we wrap up and just like two more questions. Santa Barbara, you're a definitive iconic Santa Barbara guy, right. What's special about this community. There's a reason why. HLC, ABR planning commission, these design review boards exist. It's in the charter. What is it about Santa Barbara? We're trying to preserve, but at the same time. For those people watching who feel like Santa Barbara's got to change, you know, what, what changes do you think we should go in from, from your perspective, because obviously we can't stay still. Well, it's a tough question. I think Santa Barbara's generally is doing very, very well. And I would, other than, other than getting HLC back in some kind of control of the EPV area, getting with a title 31 of the ordinances revised to get landmarks, if authority again, would be very important, but I think Santa Barbara is doing really, really well. Streets are doing well. We're getting around about constructed on, on Gabriel Boulevard. It's just, we're doing well and we've got to be appreciative of it. I think that everyone would like to get their permits faster. And I don't know why that can't be done. It is, when I talked to other architects in the community, that's the biggest complaint they've got is they cannot get permits through in a reasonable manner of time, matter of time. But it's doing well. I mean, I drove downtown to a meeting last night at about 530 or whatever. The beach was crowded. My gosh, the beach was crowded. The summer music series was getting underway and the Greek festival was going on and people were just having a high whole time. It was just absolutely amazing. It was an activation. You know, I went through the meeting in the funk zone, man, it's busy as heck. Yeah, now my way home at 730 or 8 o'clock, whatever, I drove that upstairs to eat, but I did the crisscross, you know, across the street. Nothing going on. Nothing going on. And I don't, I don't have an answer for that. And I wish I did. If I did, I'd probably invest down there. But I think Santa Barbara's doing well. And we just simply got to balance all of the pressures. It's tough for city console, tough for city console. And they, you know, when a month to ago, they cut back on the number of of cruise ships that could anchor in the harbor. And they turn around and, and two weeks later, they're short of money and no wonder where they're going to get it from. And to me, it's, you know, what's two more cruise ships out there. It's the money is good. The tourists are good. We've simply got to find ways to accommodate. Some of these idiosyncrasies of a lot of the older population, people like me. Yeah, well, you know, we all matter and we're all going to be, hopefully, if we're lucky, you know, in that stage of life too, you know, so we can't just think about the current state we're in if you're 25 years old, because we're all going to get older. And I'm right in the middle and I see that. Last thing, Ed is just final thoughts on the state street master plan and the committee, you talked about it at the beginning. Anyone, you know, the city council is listening, the public, you know, final thoughts on where do you want to go with this whole thing. Yeah, I think that we need to arrive at a decision on mobility, so that we can now turn some design designers loose on certain sections. We've got to understand. And the consoles got to say this out loud, we're not going to get it all at one time. We're not going to get it all at one time. We're going to have to pick and choose, and we're going to have to find a way to fund it that it's acceptable to everyone. If we're going to go bond measure, maybe the other other funding sources I don't know about, but I think the console is hoping that the state street advisory committee will be there. They're covered. And I don't know that that's going to happen. I think they're going to get a muddled response from the state street advisory committee, maybe staff as well. And, and they're in the conflict is going to have tough decisions to make. They know more than I know that they've got to ignore the, the myriad of letters that come saying, you know, no cars or, or by told me, or, or whatever. You've got to, you've got to read them understand them, but you've got to weigh them, you know, very carefully. I remember when what was the, the bar downtown that was scheduled to leave the Irish bar. And then you'd be the dragons. No, not dragons. No, the press room, the press room. And all of a sudden the press room came up a city council and plop down petition that had what 8000 signatures on it. And 5,000, it was an immense amount. What when you could have gotten to the doors in the entire life of the of the of the bar, they plop down 8000 signatures saying we must preserve this. Well, my God, what's the politician to do. And the same is true for the for the bike plan and the restaurant mafia. Some of those restaurants are going to have been there a lot of years and they're going to be there a lot of years. Great deal the restaurants are going to come and go and that's the nature of the beast. And you've got to make sure that when that what you allow to be built fits in and adds to the historic district, not detract from it. Yes. Perfect. Okay. Well said, and my pleasure. Appreciate your time. Thanks a lot for taking opportunity to share your views and your thoughts. And I look forward to talking you quoting you observing you. How much do you wish you do this at least once a year. Yeah, no, my pleasure. We will. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Bye.