After nearly three years of heated debate, controversial changes to the city's rules on home expansion and design will likely clear a key hurdle this week.

The so-called Neighborhood Preservation Ordinance, which spells out what homeowners can and can’t do when it comes to building on their property, goes before Santa Barbara’s Ordinance Committee for review Tuesday.

The next and final stop for the ordinance is the City Council, which could approve the changes as early as May 1.

“This is a very tricky and difficult and emotional issue,” said City Councilmember Iya Falcone, who chairs the city’s Ordinance Committee.

Santa Barbara City Councilmember Iya Falcone. SBN Photo

Few issues have sparked more uproar than the preservation law, enacted in 1992. As large homes on small lots have sprouted up across town, residents and neighborhood groups complain that the restrictions don’t have enough teeth to stop what they call the “mansionization” of areas like the Mesa and San Roque.

The critics have filled city hearing rooms with their frustration and anger, saying the direction of their neighborhoods was being dictated by developers and rich new homeowners.

To strengthen these rules, city leaders began soliciting input from the community several years ago. After 30 meetings and 100 hours of discussion, the changes are now at the approval stage.

One suggested revision would establish a separate entity – called the Neighborhood Preservation Board – specifically to review proposed changes to single family homes.

That responsibility is currently under the purview of the Architectural Review Board, which is often inundated with complaints over the expansion of single-family homes, city officials say. The architectural board also reviews changes to commercial and multi-unit residential buildings.

Proposed membership to the new board would include an architect, a landscape architect, two members of the architectural review board and other at-large members.

One of the most contentious issues in the revised ordinance deals with how big homes can be relative to the lot they occupy. Known in bureaucratic terms as “floor to lot area ratio (FAR),” the new ordinance would set specific maximums for home size depending on the lot size.

As proposed, FAR standards would be required of single-family homes under 15,000 square feet, and would be used as guidelines for homes above that size.

Other items for consideration in the proposed revision include parking requirements, balcony encroachments, and rules for homes on hillsides.

To view the changes in their entirety, visit www.santabarbara.ca.gov.

The Ordinance Committee will review these changes at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall.

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