Position Papers




Santa Ynez Valley Alliance

News

Santa Ynez Valley Alliance Nominates Mattei’s Tavern for Historic Landmark Protection


Mattei's Tavern as it appeared in 1888.

At a press conference held Jan. 13, 2010, the Santa Ynez Valley Alliance formally announced that it is nominating Mattei’s Tavern in Los Olivos for designation as a Historical Landmark.  The nomination will be submitted to the County’s Historic Landmarks Advisory Commission (HLAC) for consideration.


A car race participant (center) shows off his vehicle in 1908 in
front of Mattei's Tavern (then known as "Hotel Los Olivos").

On May 12, 1997 the Santa Barbara County Historical Landmark Advisory Committee voted unanimously "to designate the entire Mattei's Tavern property as a Place of Historical Merit," but the appropriate paperwork to finalize the designation was never completed.  To this day, Mattei’s Tavern still cannot be found among the 68 historic places or landmarks recognized by the County.


Mattei's Tavern as it appears today.

Watch January 13, 2010 Press Conference
[Video running time: 36:51]

Links

 

Valley Alliance Hosts 3rd Annual Membership Event

Fall Meeting Features Supervisor Doreen Farr, Jody White, and New VA Coordinator Mark Preston

Doreen Farr — Our Keynote Speaker

As the leader of the county’s largest supervisorial district, Supervisor Doreen Farr, the meeting’s keynote speaker, discussed many of her responsibilities, as well as several issues of concern to Valley residents, including the proposal to develop Mattei’s Tavern into a resort.

              

Valley Resident Jody White Honored


SYVA Coordinator, Mark Preston (left), with honored
SYVA board member emeritus, Jody White (right).

At its annual meeting on September 13, the Santa Ynez Valley Alliance honored long-time activist and former Valley Alliance Board Member Jody White (above-right) with the Environmental Stewardship Award. "Having been part of preserving what is great about the Santa Ynez Valley for nearly three decades, Jody more than deserves this Award,” stated Board Member Gail Marshall.

 

Valley Alliance Coordinator Introduced

The Alliance’s new Coordinator, Mark Preston, a longtime resident of the Santa Ynez Valley, was also introduced. Mr. Preston, who also has a great deal of community service experience, will be working to increase community education and outreach. The Coordinator position is partially funded by a generous grant from the Fund for Santa Barbara.

 

Home Occupations

In residential zone districts, the County has allowed a residence to be used for certain "home office" occupations under strictly permitted conditions. For example, if the
occupation - such as bookkeeping - was kept to one room of the house, the number of clients was very limited, there was sufficient parking and the occupation would not be noisy or offensive in any way to the neighborhood and surrounding community. An example of a home occupation which would not be allowed would be an automobile repair business because that type of business would not "fit" in a residential area and should be conducted in an area zoned for commercial or industrial uses. Now the County is considering allowing home occupations on all agriculturally zoned land. However, they are proposing that the types of home occupations be completely unrestricted and not just limited to one room of the residence.

When this item was first put on the Board of Supervisors agenda in the Fall of 2006, there had been no environmental document prepared and so the potential impacts to traffic, noise, water, air quality and other issues had not been researched and quantified. Since then, this item is on hold as it is being studied as part of the cumulative impacts for the Uniform Rules update.

 

Permit Streamlining

Several years ago the County formed a "Process Improvement Team" to look at ways that
the Planning Department processes and policies could be streamlined for greater ease and efficiency. Some of the changes which have subsequently been made have been positive, for example the reformatting of the zoning code and putting more information on their website that is "user friendly." However, many changes to the permitting process are "downshifting" the level of decisionmaker on land use permits. This results in the general public having little or no chance to participate in the process in a meaningful way. For example, someone building or remodeling a house used to have to go through a land use permit process which required the posting of the permit on the property as to what changes were being proposed. This gave the neighbors and other interested community members ten days to learn about the project and ask questions. If issues arose, a neighbor could appeal the decision. Now, with permit streamlining, in most cases there will be no posting of the permit and no opportunity for the neighborhood or surrounding community to know about what is to be constructed before it happens and no right to appeal the decision. This permit streamlining is being applied to many types of land use decisions in all zone districts, particularly residential and agricultural.

 

Get Your VA Shopping Bag!

Once again, this year I want to thank those in the Valley who have stepped forward to
support our mission. And once again, more than 100 of you have joined the effort to
keep the Valley rural, as we know it.

SYVA Board Treasurer, Donna Will (right), hands out VA
shopping bags at Solvang Farmers Market.

And even more, this year you can show your support for our community and the Valley Alliance by using our very own environmentally-friendly shopping bags. Made of recycled material and slightly larger than most bags, they’re ideal for shopping at the local farmer’s markets in Solvang and Los Olivos. Support your Valley farmers and businesses. Buy local and use your bag! — Mark Oliver, President