What started as a temporary COVID closure on State Street has turned into a years-long debate over what the street should become. Sully Israel, leader of Strong Towns Santa Barbara, has watched outdoor dining, biking, and public life take over space that once belonged to cars as the city considers making the change permanent. The permanent redesign would cost $96 million for nine blocks, with roughly half of that going toward stormwater and utility work. For Strong Towns Santa Barbara, that creates an unusual tension between its usual small-bets approach and a project that may justify major investment.
Hello and welcome to Bottom Up Shorts. I'm Norm with Strong Towns, and I'm delighted each week to be able to connect with Strong Towns members and so many advocates within our communities that are doing the hard work of saying, "All right, I need to be involved if I want to continue to see my community evolve, change gradually, adapt to the needs and circumstances in our community, and really be a place that not just works now, but also will continue to work into the future. that's why I'm really excited to introduce you to Sully Israel. Sully is the leader of Strong Towns Santa Barbara, working with a great group in the local conversation in order to stir up really important conversations in Santa Barbara, California, Sully has also been a really important part of the broader landscape. Authoring a report with Lindsey Sturman with the Livable Communities Initiative on the surprising connection between fixing traffic and unlocking housing.
for those that know Sully, that he's got fascinating insights and stories to be able to share with folks. Well, we might not be able to get to the communists at this point that he persuaded to have a sit-down conversation about meaningful changes within the city of Santa Barbara. But it's a great story. It's it's a good one for later. Maybe we'll leave it at that. A good reason to go visit Santa Barbara, but Sully, with that, welcome to Bottom-Up Shorts.
Wow, thank you! I couldn't ask for a better introduction. That's a cliffhanger you're going to leave people because we're not going to talk about it.
That's right. Yeah, but it is so awesome. It is one of my favorite things about you, knowing that you went and had important conversations. So, I would love to hear, like, tell us about Strong Towns Santa Barbara, and let's frame this especially in the context of the State Street discussion. to begin, why don't you paint a picture of what State Street is and what it is becoming, and then we'll broaden that out as we go.
Oh boy! Okay, so I'm going to warn the listeners of this episode. I'm going to be spitting out facts in a fast fashion. Okay, and there's not going to be time to reflect on some of them. So to give you this lowdown on State Street, a mile and a half long, perpendicular to the beach, so starts at the beach but goes inland, not parallel to the beach. Where a town of 90,000, that mile and a half is lined with traditional urbanism, what you might call wall to wall, sidewalk facing storefronts with no setbacks, no driveways, no parking lots, which for a town of our size, some people have said is actually too long or it's very long. Many of the buildings are quite deep as well. Some of them are 200 feet deep because the blocks are 420 feet per side.
The street was laid out in 1850, but it was most recently remodeled in between 1968 and 77, when the sidewalks were widened to 15 feet on each side, paved with brick, so red brick sidewalks, lined. Some blocks are lined with trees, but all of them have nice shade trees. Two lanes of driving with tiny little shoulders, which are called bike lanes by some. That was the configuration anyway until 2020. Between 2010 and 2020 is really when we saw the economic decline, which I'm sure is a familiar story to lots of people. So, in the 1990s, two blocks had been dedicated to a land deal because the city owned the land to build a mall, and it wasn't an indoor mall because we have very nice weather here. It was sort of a courtyard mall, and that mall included a Macy's and a Nordstrom's. They both went out of business between 2010 and 2020.
There was a Saks Fifth Avenue further up the street that also went out of business, and so these were some of the largest buildings on the street, and they became empty. then a lot, a number of smaller businesses also went out of business. So in total, in 2018, there were 48 vacant storefronts, and that's out of like 230, I think, storefronts. So it was noticeable, and some of them were clustered together. Right, it would be like four in a row. Usually, the ones further from the beach. So in 2020, for COVID, there was an emergency order. The street was closed to cars so that people could socially distance, and so that restaurants could put out their outdoor seating, like out in where the cars used to be, so that people could sit more than six feet apart and actually eat. it was meant to be an emergency order, but people really liked it. Like we live in a town that has 60 days of cloudy weather. We've got 300 days of sun.
We've got 300 days of 70 between 65 and 75. Right, and the way State Street had been set up in 1850 was as a commercial strip, and that function didn't lend itself to outdoor living. storefront sidewalk road was kind of what it was, and then during COVID, it became storefront sidewalk outdoor seating, and bike lanes, and like places for musicians to play, and also for people to like bring their kids and have them kick around a ball. Like it became a bunch of stuff that it wasn't before, and so the city council at the time in 2021 decided to replace the emergency order with a new ordinance called Title 31, which extended the closure till the end of 2026, which they just voted. To extend again in June, which Strong Towns was heavily involved in, and so the argument in the community, or I say the conversation, which sometimes is an argument, has centered around what is the future of this space. Right? It's it's nine blocks.
Should it be all nine blocks remaining closed to cars? Should the whole thing go back to how it was in the teens? There are people on every part of this argument, or I should say every viewpoint, or should the space be kept close to cars but redesigned and remodeled? Right, because I think most people agree what it is now is not sustainable. It still has a scratched-out yellow stripe down the middle of it, like you could tell where the lanes used to be. so, even though it's really nice to sit outside, it's clearly not an intentional design. I would say the biggest the biggest cause for concern has been around e-bikes. I think so. I know that Santa Barbara is in the top 10 of cities with biking commute mode share. So I think we may be number two or three in the country after Davis. so what's incredible is that, and this is real data, right? State Street sees 2500 bikes on an average weekday. That's not even weekend, right? That's weekday. 2,500 bikes.
Good portion of those people are commuting. A good portion of those people are tourists, and so there's been a bit of a confusion over. Okay, we close down the street to enjoy it, but it kind of part of it feels like a bike freeway almost sometimes during the day, which is a fair concern, and with e-bikes, people can get up to 25 miles per hour. So, like, what exactly are we doing here? What's the value added? I agree, of course, that even an e-bike going 25 miles per hour is safer than a car going 25 miles per hour. But the perception is it's busy, it's cluttered, it's it's unclear what the space is for, and so the strong towns. I happened to found it during this period, right? Like, I didn't found Strong Towns Santa Barbara, of course, not Strong Towns. I happened to found Strong Towns Santa Barbara, in the middle of this conversation, like by chance. So we've gotten heavily involved with it because it's the issue everyone's talking about, right?
I founded the group to really talk about housing and transportation and this and that, but it's been all about State Street. it's been like two thirds about State Street. I would say that we talk about because that's what's going before City Council. That's what people are talking about. That's what people are writing articles about. Even a meeting location is on State Street, right? Yeah, yeah. Please interrupt me because that was all the facts. Sorry, that was yeah. so our so the city initiated a master plan process. They hired, and this is where I think the Strong Towns. This is where I want to have an interesting conversation with you because we had a conversation with the city about doing tactical urbanism and doing small bets, right? Like, let's see what happens if we put some tables and chairs out. Will that slow down the bikes? What about planters? What about if we paint the street an interesting color? What if we paint the street the same color as the brick, so it feels more pedestrian?
So we've been having these conversations for six years, and people felt kind of frustrated that nothing happened. The only thing that happened was one point a bike lane was painted. That's all that's happened in six years. Other than to be fair, on one block they put in pedlets, which are like sidewalk extensions. Anyway, so instead they decided to hire a master planning firm for $800,000.
Nice work if you can get it.
Yeah, yeah, and they got fired for reasons that were never released to the public, and so then they hired another firm for 200,000. So by the way, this is a total of 800,000, and they hired Moule & Polyzoides, who are very talented people, and they produced a beautiful plan. I even have here the little thing that they passed out. This is the little create state. People won't be able to see this because there's no video, but it's a cute little card that they passed out with a rendering. their suggestion is widen the sidewalks to 30 feet, have 20 feet down the middle, which is legally you have to have 20 clear feet for fire access. Have retractable bollards at each intersection, and so then a future city council can decide if the bollards are lowers lowered to allow one lane of car traffic in each way, or raised to allow only bikes and transit.
This has sort of upset everyone because the pro car people want it cars all the time, and the other people want it no cars all the time. But it is a very beautiful design. I will give it that. Now here's the thing: the price tag is $96 million.
What for nine? Yeah, yes. Did you say 96 million?
Yes, 96 million for nine blocks. That is how California and Santa Barbara. That's how we roll. We don't do things cheaply. I will say that $48 million of that is for stormwater and utility relocation, which has to happen anyway because there's flooding in that area,
so which is still expensive. Can I just say on mobility and transportation that happens all the time, where this big bill is sort of like sitting in the back room, and then all of a sudden the new sort of humble project that like can be built with simple methods, simple materials, restriping some things, maybe putting in a few planters to create a bit of a meander, rather than like having that the repurposed roadway be just like a straight shot. All of a sudden, it's like, oh, by the way, when we talk about it publicly, we're also going to divulge finally that there's also all of these other costs, and so.
Yeah, that's quite stunning to have. That is so true, Norm. Like that, such a good way of putting it. Because, and the thing with Santa Barbara is too, we don't. We have a very high standard of design, which I appreciate, by the way, to be clear. so, the idea of like painting the street with murals or something and calling that a permanent design would leave most members of the community, angst-ridden, like they want a permanent design, but permanent things cost a lot of money. by the way, yeah, even without the stormwater stuff, it would still be $40 million. so the question that we've had now as a Strong Towns group is like, we totally support this. It's it's excellent for the. By the way, so to reflect back on the statistics I was telling you before, since the closure, we call it opening to people, not a closure. The vacancies have fallen in half, so now there's only 28 vacant storefronts, soon to be 25.
The street went from being the third most dangerous street in the city to not even being in the top 72, because it turns out when you don't have cars, you don't have DUIs, and you don't have people getting hit in the mid-block crossings and whatever. So, those are two huge wins that I don't think we talk enough about. But so the question is, as a group, now we're actually on the side of arguing for a huge expenditure because that's sort of what it's come down to. Like there is no interim. This is either it goes back to 2019, it goes back to being a dangerous car-ridden smog choke, music blaring, no outdoor seating configuration, or it goes to 96 million, and we get this beautiful thing. So, but it is. I will say, by the way, this should be the headline. Also, I'm pretty sure it's the longest pedestrian street, pedestrian slash bike street in the country in length. It's a mile and a half. So I don't know if anything rivals that.
So I think it's worth it. I think that we spent 1$40 million on our new police station, which is under construction. So I think it's worth it. I just think we have to be careful where we get the money from.
But if any place in the community is actually capable of recouping investment, it actually is State Street. So I remember when in 2024 I was in Santa Barbara demonstrating, that you've got a nine-acre mall site that comes in at about 4.4 million dollars per acre. so it sells for a cool 39 million. But if you actually go on a per-acre basis, like it, it consumes a lot of land to return not that much compared to some of the sites that are much narrower and smaller on State Street that are 140 $3.5 million per acre, 22.6, $25.3 million per acre for all of these like parcels. when you actually begin to add them all up, you begin to realize like we have such a productive land use pattern here, and we can enable that with the types of improvements that you're talking about, and that's the only way that would be able to cover this type of expenditure for stormwater and all of those things.
so, I often want to like just help reassure people that it is important to like nurture and like give rise to like all of this fine grained urbanism that Santa Barbara has through not just on State Street, other parts of the community as well, and then that turning the eye to other areas and saying like, all right, how do how would we improve these parcels of land to be at a comparable level of intensity? It doesn't mean adding multiple stories. It actually just means making much better use of that land, and that seems to be this perennial challenge. so the reason why State Street is being sort of considered for the as a key candidate for this type of investment is because it's worth so much. It's got so much restored residual value. I feel like at Strong Towns we stand up and we're like we need to be stewards and guardians of the good things that are working in the community, and then actually try to bring along the rest of what we're doing.
That this is very quickly at risk of being a runaway conversation, which is my favorite kind. But let's maybe just pivot because you said so. State Street, you've been very engaged in it. But as we talked on the pre-show, you said I also don't. our group is not pigeonholed to only being about that. Can you describe maybe just a bit of a tip or a suggestion on how to how can other leaders who know that there's a lot of interest in one particular thing you do get involved? How do you also sort of keep room on your radar for other types of emerging things in the community to really keep everyone engaged.
Well, you asked me that, like I have the answer. I'm trying to navigate that myself, and I will tie it back to State Street because I think everyone listening will be really excited about this. Yes, it's about bike lanes and outdoor seating and all this stuff, but actually, to your point, it will unlock housing, which is something not many people. It's mentioned in the plan, mentioned, but the stormwater management 40,000,040, 8 million, will actually enable housing because right now all of these buildings can't get built because of the impermeable space, and the and how much more they will contribute to flooding, and so it'll unlock like. Four-story buildings, but what I'm trying to do with Strong Towns is people know us as the State Street Group. They come to us as the State Street Group, and then during our monthly meetings, we actually do breakout groups where we'll do a housing breakout group. One of our members, and she's fantastic, older.
She's retired, and she's taking it upon herself to be the Strong Towns housing lady. Has separate Zoom calls just about implementing housing strategy in Santa Barbara, and so the people on those Zoom calls-local developers, property owners, advocates from the tenants' union-like they're having conversations that don't have to do with State Street. so we're trying to spread that awareness. We're having a council election, and we're talking to candidates, and some of them are genuinely surprised. Like I, I spoke to a candidate who I'm supporting for my district, and she's been on the planning commission. when she met with me, and I we were talking about zoning and how we could reform the zoning code. then she looked at me. She said, she said, I had heard all about you and Strong Towns, and I thought you were just like about State Street, and I had no idea that you'd thought about zoning in the rest of the city, and I'm like, yeah, that's what Strong Towns is all about. It's about zoning reform, like.
now she's, and hopefully she'll get elected, and then we'll have this person that we have a personal relationship with on council who actually will bring us into some of those conversations. so I think it's to answer your question, I really do think it's about relationships and talking to the right people about the issues they care about. It's probably the best answer.
Yeah, that's. it's at the core, and I feel like that emerges time and time again. But it is one of those layers where there's actually reward in that as well. Like those relationships are rewarding. Those moments where you're encouraged by someone, where you're like, they're starting to understand that we're much more involved in the broader discussions that we want to see in our community in helping to kickstart that. I just think that's fantastic. We've barely even scratched the surface here, but I want to close by asking, like, what is it that gives you hope and encouragement? I know that you certainly need that hope and encouragement. But what are some of the areas that do give you that hope?
It's really, really awesome when, and I want to tell this to anyone who wants to start a group. I could not have imagined three and a half years ago when I started this. I city council members to me. I'm not friends with any of them, and they're like, they might as well be the president. that's how inaccessible they seem. at least in a town my size, you email them and you don't hear back, and it's in three years. Like I said, we have candidates coming to our meetings and meeting with us. I've had coffee with every single city council candidate. Like it was not hard for me because they know. Okay, wow, these guys have a constituency. We got 3,200 people to sign our State Street petition, and so even if it's out of self-interest, which is fine with me. Oh yeah, we'll work with that. They're meeting with us, and to go all the way back to the introduction you gave to me, I wrote with Lindsey Sturman.
We co-wrote the traffic, and it was how to solve traffic, and whatever the title was. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, and I was watching an interview with Nishiya Raman on the Nan Dirt YouTube channel, and she was actually quoting from that report and quoting from the Communities Initiative, and I'm like, "Holy moly, Nisha Raman, who I don't even know, is quoting stuff from something I wrote because someone shared it with her through someone else. I never sent it to her, and like that is so cool, and that means that the ideas-it's a drip of ideas that are slowly getting from strong towns and from people like me and all these other people that I work with and candidates and it's a whole group, right? It's never just one person. It's not me alone, and that those I see those ideas working their way into the public discourse, and as those ideas work their way into the public discourse and become more accepted, the other thing that gives me hope is more people join.
All of our meetings are well attended. The events we put on are well attended. I don't want to jinx anything, but yeah, like it's all about the community. It's about people showing up, and that's what they're doing. it's it's wonderful to watch.
Yeah, and thank you for sharing your reflections, even of sort of your the origin story, and then sort of getting to the current day, because I think sometimes I even feel this. People will be spooked because they're like, oh, someone is in their middle of their journey, and wow, look at all that they're doing. I always say on this podcast, like, don't judge your beginning by other people's middle. yet, you can definitely take inspiration from where they've gotten, like what you've done in Saint in Santa Barbara. But also, I think, like you said, just those humble origins actually really matter because that's what we're in this for. We are we're not trying to like earn a paycheck. We're not trying to like go and completely get credit for everything. Instead, it's just taking those small steps and then beginning to build up momentum as we go. so, I feel like this is exactly what we want to continue to foster with the Bottom-Up Shorts, Sully.
Thank you so much for joining me today for this fascinating discussion.
Thanks for having me. I loved it.
Yeah, and to many more conversations down the road, and to the streets that we open and the places that we improve as we do this work together. Thank you so much, and folks, if. You're listening at home. Take care and take care of your places. Cheers. This episode was produced by Strong Towns, a nonprofit movement for building financially resilient communities. If what you heard today matters to you, deepen your connection by becoming a Strong Towns member at StrongTowns.org/membership.