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Designing affordable housing Award-winning architects discuss the benefits during Santa Barbara talk
Dispute over hotel purchase resolved By NEIL HARTSTEIN NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
Kinko’s founder Paul Orfalea of Montecito and another Montecito businessman have successfully defended their reputations against a $15 million lawsuit filed by a third Montecito man who accused them of fraud, claiming he was wrongly left out of a deal to buy and redevelop an Alabama hotel. Mr. Orfalea and John Moller were sued by Patrick Nesbitt, who claimed that he and Mr. Moller entered into a 2015 oral agreement to go in on the deal together to buy the hotel, and that Mr. Moller violated that agreement by going it alone. Mr. Orfalea was named as a co-defendant. A Santa Barbara jury reached its verdict on Oct. 12 following two days of deliberations. The case was heard in Santa Barbara because Mr. Nesbitt contended the oral agreement was created there. No damages were awarded to the defendants, who won the case because they never filed a crosscomplaint against Mr. Nesbitt. Nor did they seek damages. (The plaintiff, however, will be responsible for defendants’ costs, such as court reporter fees and KENNETH SONG / NEWS-PRESS
Lawrence Scarpa and Angie Brooks, recent winners of the 2022 AIA National Gold Medal Award for design, showcase their multi-unit dwellings during a lecture at Santa Barbara City College.
SB City Council to consider revisions to Single Family Design Board By NEIL HARTSTEIN NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
At left, Lawrence Scarpa and Angie Brooks emphasize their work is driven by a recognition of the benefits of affordable housing. At right, the audience listens during the lecture on affordable housing.
By JARED DANIELS NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
Two award-winning architects recently delivered a presentation at Santa Barbara City College that showcased their work and shared their knowledge of designing affordable, high-density housing in hard-tobuild areas such as Southern California. Angela Brooks and Lawrence Scarpa, the husband-and-wife duo who head up the architecture and urban design firm Brooks+Scarpa and recently received the 2022 American Institute of Architects Gold Medal, emphasized that their work was driven by a recognition of the benefits of affordable housing. The pair spent much of their presentation showcasing their projects in Los Angeles and other areas of Southern California — an array of modern multi-unit dwellings often outfitted with attractive facades, and that put an emphasis on achieving harmony with the street and surrounding neighborhood. The firm also stresses the availability of outdoor courtyard spaces, which the owners believe is essential to the success of highdensity housing. “When you build something that’s (high) density, you really need to create space as well for people to be,” Mrs. Brooks explained during Friday’s talk. “So you’ll see all of our buildings that are six stories and below have courtyards. (They’re) really the lungs of the buildings.”
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This emphasis on design carries out throughout the portfolio that was displayed, whether the building was purposed for affordable residential units or housing for homeless populations, another factor that Brooks and Scrappa believe are required to improve neighborhood reception to such projects In addition to their direct involvement in designing and developing affordable housing, the pair emphasized their commitment to helping other organizations contribute to the mission of increasing the stock of affordable housing. One such contribution they’ve made is creating a tool kit to help developers, including Brooks+Scrappa, create affordable high-density housing that passes regulatory muster throughout Los Angeles County. “There’s 27 cities in L.A. County — they all have their own codes, everything is different,” Mr. Scrappa said. “But what they have in common are three (lot) sizes; 80% of them (fall into three different lot sizes and configurations). So we took all the codes. We distilled everything down to what was common and came up with a building area and a strategy that would fit within all of those cities’ codes.” “And we came up with the tool kit that you could configure based on prefabricated components that you could just select them and they will fit on any of those sites in L.A. County,” he continued. Throughout the presentation, the pair
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repeatedly emphasized their belief in the importance of affordable housing for cities — and hoped to showcase through their work that, with proper and mindful design, highdensity building can be a viable option in providing it. “What we are basically trying to do is to show that affordable housing can make cities richer,” Mr. Scarpa told the audience. “And we’re not just doing that to try and advocate for affordable housing — we really believe that diverse communities are more sustainable, more rich and better places to live.” email: jdaniels@newspress.com
The Santa Barbara City Council today will consider adopting an ordinance to revise the membership of the Single Family Design Board, which includes changing membership criteria and quorum requirements. The council also will receive an update from staff regarding the Single Family Design Board process improvement work effort being considered by the Land Development Team Oversight Subcommittee to streamline project design review. The council will meet at 2 p.m. in its chambers, 735 Anacapa St. “Given ongoing challenges to recruit new Single Family Design Board (SFDB) members and maintain a quorum for their biweekly full board meetings, staff is requesting to amend the SFDB membership to be comprised of five members (instead of seven members), to establish that three members would constitute a quorum (instead of four members), and that attendance by a member with professional qualifications in architecture is unnecessary to achieve quorum,” according to the city. For membership qualifications, staff is proposing that the board be composed of at least one architect, up to three professionals with similar qualifications, and up to three members of the public without professional qualifications. Further, staff is proposing to add urban planning as a category in professional qualifications based on Ordinance Committee input. “With these changes, staff hopes to address the immediate concern of holding regularly scheduled SFDB hearings while providing the City Council ultimate
flexibility when appointing SFDB board members,” staff wrote in its report to the council. The Single Family Design Board was established by the council in 2007 as the result of a multi-year effort to update the City’s Neighborhood Preservation Ordinance, which expanded the type and number of single-unit residence projects subject to discretionary design review. Prior to 2007, single-unit residential development projects requiring design review were under the purview of the Architectural Board of Review. The expanded discretionary review of single-unit residential projects necessitated a separate advisory body to handle the workload and focus on issues and design features of residential development. The city of Santa Barbara often has challenges recruiting and retaining members of the City’s four design review bodies (SFDB, ABR, Historic Landmarks Commission and Sign Committee), staff said. Whereas the membership criteria and quorum requirements of the ABR and Historic Landmarks Commission are established by City Charter, SFDB membership is established by Municipal Code and can be amended by a majority vote of the council. “Staff recommends revising the membership criteria of the SFDB to address persistent recruitment and retention issues and challenges achieving a quorum in order to hold scheduled public meetings and minimize unnecessary delay of single-unit residential development projects,” according to the city. Current requirements call for seven members appointed by the Please see COUNCIL on A4
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Brooks+Scarpa, an architecture and urban design firm, has worked with others on developing affordable high-density housing that passes regulatory muster throughout Los Angeles County.
jury fees.) Damages, however, were never the point, says Ryan Waggoner, a partner in Allen Matkins, the law firm that represented the defendants. “While money was a factor Mr. Nesbitt sought $15 million in damages - reputation was the primary concern at stake,” Mr. Waggoner said. “Mr. Nesbitt alleged that Mr. Moller and Mr. Orfalea committed fraud, so this lawsuit allowed them to vindicate their positions in a court of law and keep intact their reputations as honorable businessmen. “Mr. Nesbitt, on the other hand, has harmed his reputation in the community by suing two prominent people in the community, one of whom is one of Santa Barbara’s most philanthropic residents.” The dispute arose from the sale of a hotel in Huntsville, Alabama in October 2015. Mr. Nesbitt, CEO of a hotel management company called Windsor Capital Group, Inc., had the motel under contract for approximately 10 months between 2013 and 2014. But after failing to line up financing, Windsor fell Please see HOTEL on A4
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