february 9-16, 2017
First Look inside the Marc
SATURDAY, MARCH 11 100% of proceeds benefit local breast cancer research & programs at the Cancer Center of Santa Barbara!
Register today! www.ccsb.org/irelandwalk2017
The Marc, situated on the corner of State Street and La Cumbre Road, features 89 one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments ranging in size from 646 to 1,026 square feet with prices starting at $2,900 per month and topping out at $3,750. Its “resort-style amenities” include a pool and spa, rooftop lounge, gym, bocce courts, and a vegetable garden. Tripp Dubois, a managing partner of Los Angeles–based real estate investment firm The Kor Group, which built The Marc in partnership with REthink Development, said a quarter of the units have already been
pau l wellm an photos
t
he last time any meaningful amount of rental housing was built in the City of Santa Barbara, Ronald Reagan was president, The Golden Girls had just debuted, and rent averaged around $500 a month. For the next 30 years, virtually no apartments would be constructed as the city intentionally slowed growth to preserve Santa Barbara’s smalltown character, and developers found far better profits in single-family homes and condominiums. This drought in new rental housing — which has helped squeeze the vacancy rate to below one percent and driven rent prices to record levels — will start to lift February 25 when The Marc hosts its grand opening. The project is the first to go online since the city launched its experimental housing program — the Average Unit-Size Density (AUD) program — in 2013 to incentivize affordable homes for area workers.
leased. “They’re all locals,” he said of the tenants. “They’re all ages from all walks. It’s a fantastic mix. It’s exactly what we envisioned from the beginning.” Dubois said he hopes to have The Marc fully leased in the next six to nine months. But the project is not without its critics. They’ve balked at The Marc’s high price points and are skeptical it will attract the Santa Barbara area workers for whom the AUD program was designed. City Councilmembers Jason Dominguez and Bendy White have proposed putting the brakes on the AUD program until it can be tweaked to better meet its intended goals. Others at City Hall have cautioned against prematurely reworking the program before its true impacts can be measured. Yes, The Marc may be expensive, they’ve said, but the program should be given time to mature and produce a variety of projects with varying rates, which, taken as a whole, will eventually soften Santa Barbara’s drum-tight rental market. —Tyler Hayden
Pini Faces thousands of Violations
S
anta Barbara City Attorney Ariel Calonne announced that 3,200 notices of code violations on 13 rental properties owned by landlord Dario Pini were posted this Tuesday. Calonne said Pini, the target of an intense inspection sweep in early December, will have 30 days to remediate the issues. How Pini complies, Calonne said, will affect whether the city initiates receivership actions against him. The notices of violation include vermin, mold, faulty toilets, exposed wiring, and construction conducted without permits. Calonne said tenants would be notified by mail that the work was required but that they had nothing to fear.
“These are trumped-up charges,” Pini said, resulting from when building inspectors arrived on his properties in December 2016 with 15 armed police officers. “It’s a Wednesday. It’s raining. Kids are in school,” he said. “They have no place to go.” The 12
THE INDEPENDENT
February 16, 2017
independent.com
whole thing, Pini said, extremely alarmed the tenants.“Imagine, Trump just got elected and now this!” Though Pini claimed the violations were not health and safety concerns, one two-bedroom unit reportedly had 12 beds and was missing an inside doorknob. Pini expressed surprise at this, but he said it was because previous low-income rentals have been recently upgraded, displacing existing tenants. His attorney, Larry Powell, said all 100 units inspected in December have been brought up to code. To date, City Hall has never taken over a rental property from a noncompliant landlord. And Pini, who rents to thousands of tenants, has never lost a property to receivership. As for the rats found in his properties, Pini was underwhelmed: “The other day I was in the courthouse, and I saw a rat run by. They’re —Nick Welsh everywhere.”