4/14/00
By ANTONIO A. PRADO
NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
Flying off today to a planned vacation in Hawaii, Santa Barbara developer Bill Levy is leaving behind what some
see as insurmountable obstacles to his plan to revamp lower Street Street.
On top of Wednesday's vote by the state Coastal Commission to postpone for two months a final decision on his La
Entrada de Santa Barbara project, Levy is being challenged by vociferous environmentalist opponents -- and a lawsuit
against the city that could delay his plans even further.
"The way Bill Levy's project is going, he probably feels he's on the Titanic, not the Queen Mary," said
Tom Becker of Cars Are Basic, referring to the commission's meeting this week in Long Beach aboard the retired
ocean liner.
But a day after encountering the latest hurdle in his bid for approval of the city-backed development near the
waterfront, Levy is optimistic and confident. He is moving forward with the design phase, a process, he notes,
that could take a few months anyway.
"It's not going to change the project," Levy said. "Overall it shouldn't make a lot of difference."
Levy leads a partnership that has invested tens of millions of dollars to redevelop the last three blocks of State
Street by building single and multi-story retail shops and 81 timeshare apartments, 26 of which are planned for
a remodeled Californian Hotel.
Because of Wednesday's delay, what is expected to be the last public hearing on La Entrada will be held in mid-June
at the waterfront Radisson Hotel in Santa Barbara.
Commissioners are seeking guidance from state housing policy experts in determining how much Levy should pay to
make up for the loss of the Californian's 96 moderately priced hotel rooms. That money is supposed to finance low-cost
accommodations elsewhere in Santa Barbara.
Levy's opponents consider the latest delay a victory, in part because a hearing at home will make it easier for
them to be even more vocal.
Becker's group -- one of three that appealed to the Coastal Commission the City Council's unanimous approval of
La Entrada last August -- opposes the project's proposed narrowing of State Street to two lanes so that sidewalks
can be widened.
The other appellants, Citizens Planning Association and the League of Women Voters of Santa Barbara, oppose Levy's
plans because the proposed shops will block some mountain views. They also contend that city planners did not properly
review the project. In addition, the groups are pushing for parking and some shops to be built further back from
environmentally sensitive Mission Creek.
While such obstacles might discourage other developers, Levy is pressing on after nearly two dozen hearings.
The next hurdle is an April 27 Superior Court hearing of a lawsuit against the city challenging the legality of
its planners' review of La Entrada.
The League of Women Voters and the Citizens Planning Association -- represented by the nonprofit law firm Environmental
Defense Center -- say city planners should have done a detailed environmental impact report on the project.
Instead, planners did a more cursory review known as a "mitigated negative declaration," which essentially
stated that any environmental impacts of Levy's project could be easily alleviated.
City officials have said their review, which included 20 public hearings and workshops over a year's time, sufficiently
scrutinized the plan.
During that review, Levy went back to the drawing board a number of times and scaled back the project. That helped
garner support by the seven-member City Council, which in August voted unanimously to uphold the Planning Commission's
6-1 approval of the project.
La Entrada's opponents are asking Judge Thomas Anderle to order the city to essentially start over and conduct
another review with a detailed environmental impact report.
If the city loses, Levy's project could be pushed back for months -- or even more than a year.
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