Profiled 5-6-24
Santa Barbara County, California, population 448,229 (2020), is located on the Pacific Coast roughly 90 miles west of Los Angeles. In 1888, the county approved a subdivision map for 400 lots on a prime property along the Pacific Coast three miles west of Goleta. In 2008, 17 lots were approved for development but not developed. The county’s TDR programs aims to preserve the most important parcels in the area, referred to as either Naples or Santa Barbara Ranch.
Chapter 35.64 Transfer of Development Rights in the Santa Barbara Zoning Code states its purpose as motivating the transfer of development potential from eligible Naples lots to eligible receiving sites along the South Coast of Santa Barbara County in furtherance of Coastal Land Use Plan Policy 2-13. In addition to eligible receiving sites under county jurisdiction, this code section allows interjurisdictional transfers controlled by interjurisdictional agreements.
Sending sites must meet one or more of the following criteria: visible from Highway 101; within the Coastal Zone; on or adjacent to a coastal bluff; prime agricultural land; within or near environmentally sensitive habitat; within or near culturally or archeologically sensitive areas; or achieving other conservation goals recommended by the Planning Commission. These criteria are used to rank all lots within the sending area. Transferable development credits (TDCs) can only be sold to the county’s TDR Authority, which can be a governmental agency or a non-governmental agency (like a local land trust or national conservation organization) authorized by the county to buy and sell TDCs.
To be deemed eligible receiving sites, properties within unincorporated San Barbara County must meet all of the following criteria: within the county’s South Coast Housing Market Area; within a designated urban area; less than 30 percent slope; not within a flood or geologic hazard area; not under agricultural production or containing any Class I or II land; not within an environmentally sensitive habitat; and not within a culturally or archeologically sensitive area.
To motivate acceptance of receiving sites, the TDR Authority can allocate amenity funds (not to exceed ten percent of the proceeds from the Authority’s sale of its TDCs to the receiving site) to pay for infrastructure enhancements within receiving site neighborhoods. The TDR Authority uses a valuation method to establish TDC prices based on a percent of land value “sufficiently discounted to induce participation.”
The Santa Barbara County Zoning Code also contains Chapter 35.454 Montecito Transfer of Development Rights. As in Chapter 35.64, described above, the goal of 35.454 is to extinguish development potential in Naples. Montecito is an unincorporated town of 8,638 (2022) located on the other side of the City of Santa Barbara from Naples. Possibly Chapter 35.454 anticipates receiving areas within Montecito because in this chapter the Montecito Commission is tasked with recommending how amenity funds may be used in receiving site neighborhoods.