Slow Growth in Santa Barbara

* Every few years, you do a piece about Santa Barbara poised at the precipice of overdevelopment (March 24). Every weekend, thousands of your readers come up here for rest and relaxation because it has not happened. It is not going to happen now either, with or without State Water Project water. The reason is in Chapters 10 and 11 of Kevin Starr’s book “Material Dreams”: The overwhelming majority of Santa Barbarans, from the grass roots through the key social elites, do not want it to happen. Each time a candidate or issue gets onto the local ballot based on rapid growth versus slow growth, “rapid” almost always loses. Been that way for a hundred years.

It has nothing to do with an “anti-business” climate, or general plans and zoning codes that “torture” developers. It involves a strong commitment to high quality of life and community standards, and a desire to remain small and semirural. It also involves a strong tradition of direct citizen involvement in community affairs. No local politicians, no matter how well funded by development (or oil) money, last long here if they don’t keep faith with those principles.

OLGA HOWARD, President

Citizens Planning Assn.

of Santa Barbara County