San Roque Historic Context and Resource Survey

Santa Barbara’s Historic Resources Element of the General Plan adopted by City Council in 2013 identifies protection and enhancement of historical resources as one of the preservation goals, specifically to: Continue to identify, designate, protect, preserve and enhance the City’s historical and architectural resources. The General Plan’s Historic Resources Element includes an implementation measure (HR8) to accelerate survey work and prioritize architectural and historical surveys to identify and document information about significant buildings, structures and sites. This project will provide the needed funding to implement this key goal in the City’s preservation plan.  By completing survey work, historic resources that may be eligible for historic designation are identified in advance of project planning.  Rather than at the time of project submittal. The survey results will allow City staff to more efficiently complete environmental reviews pursuant to CEQA. The survey will also provide clarity on the historic status of a property that will help property owners properly plan for appropriate alterations.

In addition, The California Environmental Quality Act is a California State Law that requires the City to evaluate properties for historical significance upon the submission of a project for discretionary review. This ensures that previously identified and unidentified historical resources are not inappropriately altered, impacted, or demolished without proper evaluation. However, the survey will proactively identify the historic resources rather than upon project submissions, this allows property owners to know prior to planning projects if their property may be eligible as a historic resource.

The survey of eligible historic resources in the San Roque neighborhood is a priority due to the vulnerability of the houses in the neighborhood. The area is a single-family zone, where projects often do not require discretionary review, unlike in multi-family and commercial zones, many of the buildings do not trigger review under the California Environmental Quality Act and therefore, do not receive a historic evaluation at project submission. San Roque’s small homes are particularly vulnerable to alterations and demolition because they are rather small houses on large lots, and many new property owners want to alter and enlarge them or demolish them completely to make way for a larger house. Because the city is almost fully developed, growth in Santa Barbara continues to shift from building on open land to redevelopment of existing sites. As a result, historic resources are increasingly viewed as sites with redevelopment opportunities.  The development pressure will result in loss of historic resources if they are not surveyed, identified and protected.

The project is a historic context statement and historic resources survey project. The project has two distinct Phases. Phase 1 of the project is the development of the historic context statement and Phase 2 is a historic resources survey that will be conducted by architectural historians within the historic core of the San Roque neighborhood.

A historic context statement is a narrative document that will document the neighborhood’s development history and identify important themes, property types, architectural trends, patterns of development, community groups, significant events, and people that are associated with that history. The document will connect this history to existing places within the community. This may include buildings, such as the homes of important community figures or great examples of architectural styles. It may also include sites of important events.

Once the historic context statement research is completed, architectural historians will begin the historic resources survey of the neighborhood to identify potential areas of cultural and historical significance. The Survey includes an inventory of all properties over 45 years old, including properties that have recently come of age (up to the year 1980).

No. This project will only identify a property that may be eligible to be nominated for designation by property owners.

All properties that are 45 years and older (built in 1980 or earlier) will be included in the survey.

No. The survey is conducted from the public right-of-way and does not require access to private property or advanced coordination with property owners or residents.

To be eligible for designation, a property generally must be associated with a historically significant event, person, or architectural style and have sufficient historical integrity, the ability of a property to convey its historical significance. The historic context statement organizes historically significant people, events and architectural styles into themes and subthemes, each having registration requirements or designation eligibility criteria. Through field inspection, research, and application of the registration requirements, the survey team determines if property is eligible for designation.   

We are in the early stages of the project and our first public meeting is scheduled for March 13, 2025 at 6 PM. The project is anticipated to be completed by April 2026 with draft documents available for public review later this year. Additional details about public meetings will be available here. 

Attend the public meetings, connect with the South Environmental team at the public meetings or through email, submit historical information such as, historic photographs and neighborhood memories and stories, to NHernandez@SantaBarbaraCA.gov by April 30, 2025.