Challenges Continue as City Council Undertakes State Street Blueprinting

We Don’t Need No Stinking Task Force, or Do We?

by NICK WELSH

A large gathering of local architects were profusely thanked for spending an excruciatingly beautiful Saturday late in October reimagining the future of State Street in a post-Amazon.com world, but they were told in no uncertain terms not to expect the creation of a new task force by the Santa Barbara City Council to further flesh out their ideas. While Mayor Helene Schneider was effusive in her gratitude, Councilmember Gregg Hart was equally adamant that City Hall lacked the time and resources to take on so monumental an undertaking.

In response to the large number of vacant downtown storefronts, the Santa Barbara chapter of the American Institute of Architects hosted an all-day charrette October 21 in which members broke into nine separate teams to explore new design and function options for the central business district in two-block chunks. Common to all the schemes, presented to the council in 3D, computer-illustrated splendor, was the idea of housing on State Street.

Read in full: https://www.independent.com/news/2017/dec/07/tk-we-dont-need-no-stinking-task-force-tk/