The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors packed its June 9 meeting with housing-related decisions, from a major county loan for a new affordable apartment project near Goleta to the annual plan for how millions in federal housing dollars get spent across the county. Most items were routine renewals of contracts that keep shelter beds, mental health housing, and addiction treatment programs operating — but together they shape what housing and homeless services look like for residents over the next year.
A new affordable apartment complex moves forward in Eastern Goleta Valley
The most consequential housing item was the board’s action on a county loan to FLT San Simeon Oaks, L.P., the partnership building a new multi-family affordable housing development in the unincorporated Eastern Goleta Valley. Along with the loan, supervisors took up an Affordable Housing Agreement — a binding contract that requires the apartments to stay affordable to lower-income tenants for decades, not just at opening.
For residents, the practical meaning is straightforward: a new rental complex aimed at working families and lower-income households is moving from paperwork into construction-ready territory in one of the county’s tightest rental markets. Eastern Goleta Valley has seen very little new deed-restricted affordable housing in recent years, so even a single project of this kind is significant for renters priced out of market-rate apartments in Goleta and Santa Barbara.
The county’s annual federal housing spending plan
Supervisors held a 45-minute hearing on the 2026-2027 Annual Action Plan — the document that tells the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD — the federal housing agency) how Santa Barbara County intends to spend its annual allocation of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) money and other federal housing funds over the coming year. CDBG dollars typically pay for things like first-time homebuyer assistance, rehabilitation of older affordable units, public facilities in lower-income neighborhoods, and grants to nonprofits serving homeless residents.
What it means for residents: this is the once-a-year decision point where the county locks in which nonprofits and programs get federal housing money. Anyone hoping to see funding go to a particular shelter, food program, or housing repair effort had this hearing as the main opportunity to weigh in before the plan is sent to HUD.
A bond deal for affordable apartments in Santa Maria
In a short hearing, the board signed off on the California Municipal Finance Authority (CMFA — a statewide agency that issues tax-exempt bonds on behalf of local projects) issuing tax-exempt facility bonds for Santa Maria Orchard Terrace Associates, LP. The TEFRA hearing — a federally required public hearing before tax-exempt bonds can be issued — is a procedural step, but it has real consequences: the lower-cost financing makes it possible for the Orchard Terrace project to keep rents affordable. Without the bond approval, the math on the project gets significantly harder.
A major land-use change heading to a July hearing
Supervisors set a July 7, 2026 hearing on the Rose Comprehensive Plan Amendment and Zoning Map Amendment in the Second District (Case Nos. 23GPA-00006, 23RZN-00006, and 25NGD-00006). In plain English, the applicant is asking the county to change both the long-range land-use designation in the General Plan — the county’s 20-year blueprint for what gets built where — and the zoning map, the parcel-by-parcel rulebook that controls what can actually be built on a given property.
Changes of this type usually unlock housing or different uses that current rules don’t allow. The substantive debate, and the chance for neighbors to speak, will happen at the July 7 hearing rather than this week.
Homeless services and supportive housing contracts
A large block of the agenda renewed agreements that fund the county’s homeless and behavioral-health housing safety net. Supervisors took up first amended and restated Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs — written agreements that spell out who does what) and Mental Health Supportive Services Agreements with the Housing Authority of the County of Santa Barbara (HASBARCO), the public agency that owns and operates much of the county’s affordable and supportive housing stock. These agreements govern the on-site mental health services that make permanent supportive housing actually work for tenants coming out of homelessness.
The board also approved or renewed agreements with Good Samaritan Shelter for transitional supportive housing tied to the Community Corrections Partnership (which helps people leaving the justice system find stable housing), and a separate Good Samaritan agreement for substance-abuse screening and treatment for homeless residents. A new fiscal year 2026-2027 agreement with PathPoint for substance-use services rounded out that group.
On the mental health side — much of which is delivered inside group homes, board-and-care facilities, and supportive apartments — supervisors moved forward on agreements with Our Healing Center, a Second Amendment with Olive Crest, a new agreement with New Way Group Home, residential program services agreements with Davis Guest Home, Sylmar Health and Rehabilitation, and Vista Pacifica, and a Third Amendment with the Family Service Agency of Santa Barbara County.
None of these contracts are dramatic on their own. The pattern, though, matters for residents: the county is locking in another year (and in several cases, two or three years) of the housing-with-services model that keeps hundreds of vulnerable residents off the street and out of emergency rooms and jail beds. If any of these contracts had failed, the practical result would have been fewer beds available locally.
Fees, sewers, and the cost of building
Two hearings dealt with the less glamorous but very real costs of building housing. The board introduced — that is, took the first of two required votes on — an ordinance amending the Public Works Department’s Subdivision Map and Document Review Fee Schedule in the Surveyor Division. These are the fees property owners and developers pay when splitting lots or recording new subdivision maps, and changes flow through to the cost of building new homes.
Separately, supervisors held a hearing on a Laguna County Sanitation District ordinance covering sewer service charges, connection charges, and trunk sewer fees in the Fourth District, along with a resolution allowing those charges to be collected on the property tax roll. For homeowners in the district, the practical effect is on the sewer line of their property tax bill; for anyone building or adding a unit, connection charges are part of the upfront cost of getting a new home hooked up.
What’s coming up
The biggest pending decision is the Rose Comprehensive Plan and Zoning Map Amendment hearing on July 7, 2026, which will be the first real public airing of a proposed change to both the county’s long-range plan and its zoning map in the Second District. The fee ordinance introduced this week will return for a second reading — the formal final vote following this week’s preliminary one — before it takes effect. And the federal Annual Action Plan, once finalized, will set the menu of housing and community development programs the county funds through mid-2027.