What’s Really and Accurately Up with the Miramar Beach Resort? A Rebuttal to Bob Hazard’s One-Sided and Inaccurate Article

Mr. Hazard, let’s begin with your 1st point (MJ Vol. 30_40, October 3-10, 2024) that the Rosewood expansion will provide “Workforce Housing for Employees.” Yes, affordable Housing is GREAT but only when it’s available to the community at large, not for self-serving interests taking advantage of a poorly written bill; SB-330. So 26 affordable housing units, let’s not forget a pool of 400 Miramar ONLY employees? That actually equates to income for the Miramar and increases its ability to find employees. Are we to believe this will reduce traffic and offset our carbon footprint? The reality is that the average occupancy would be 1.5 occupants, spouses, offspring, etc. So more like 40 occupants of which 14 are not Miramar employees. Perhaps these additional affordable housing residents own cars too? And perhaps they have friends? Visitors with cars? Which will be parked… where? But let’s get back to SB-330 which most people know nothing about. Here is a summary:

SB-330 was created to stimulate developers to build more affordable housing, unfortunately it falls far short of that important goal. Developers are clearly taking advantage of this poorly written bill creating high risks to those who live near their ill-planned projects. SB-330 gives CARTE BLANCHE to developers as it bypasses several important safety valves in the system by allowing developers to leap over important regulatory and watchdog entities such as the Coastal Commission, CEQA/EIR (an Environmental Impact Report), and here’s a big one – it creates shortcuts around the issues of PUBLIC SAFETY.

The Miramar expansion would break local roads which are already overwhelmed. 

We presently have a monster of a 101 freeway expansion in progress extending itself like a cancerous growth – 80% of our freeway ramps, that’s four out of the five in the immediate vicinity of the Miramar Hotel are closed! Over six detours alone have been documented on the SBROADS101 website! Automobile accidents are climbing every month! 

And let’s also take a look at the “UNDERGROUND PARKING” so highly touted by Mr. Hazard and how it will truly impact PUBLIC SAFETY to construct it. It will require very large 10-ton capacity trucks to make over 2,600 trips to remove the volume of dirt required for this parking structure. Will they be easily accessing the freeway with their payloads of dirt and TOXIC asphalt? No, they will be tearing up our surface streets taking the local detours, and creating a huge carbon footprint, contributing to TRAFFIC and a threat to PUBLIC SAFETY.  

Mira-Marred

Current Miramar parking overflow is interfering with emergency situations, i.e. fire, flood, evacuations and the ability for safety vehicles to get through our already narrow streets. Who is to be placed in charge of this critical traffic study? At present it’s actually the Miramar team! This again brings me to a very simple question: Is it even possible to do an accurate traffic report given the current condition of the 101 Freeway construction surrounding the area? In fact, it’s impossible to perform an essential and reliable traffic report until the 101 freeway construction is completed. Remember all the closed ramps, all the detours, all the road blockage from the construction. The even bigger question is why would the County allow the DEVELOPER to be in charge of producing this critical traffic report? It needs to be a peer reviewed traffic study! Sure, the Miramar Hotel can be involved. They can pay the County for a proper study to be done AFTER the 101 freeway expansion has finally been completed in 2026!

Seriously, what’s the rush here!?

Why are Team Caruso and their supporters in such a hurry to slam this through a system that was designed and developed over a decade to work? Hmmm…skipping MBAR, not putting up story poles, refusing an EIR. Non-existent. All of these well-proven checks and balances thrown out the window. A transparent forum for all of us who live here was completely, utterly, and arrogantly discarded. This system that was put in place long before Caruso and his team arrived in Santa Barbara. The heavy hitters at Caruso and associates commuted here, they’re NOT from here, they do not raise their families here. They are from Los Angeles County. So why would they have the best interests of our community in mind when in reality they are not a part of our community? Of our environment? The real truth here is: it’s all about the bottom line, profit – and I would not exclude the County too from this statement, as they will gain bed tax, property tax, and retail tax money revenues should this expansion be approved in its entirety; including luxury apartments – and let’s not forget Mr. Hazard’s brief mention of a few shops.

The “miramall” is not just growing, it’s grove-ing!

We are talking 22 SHOPS in total after 12 more are added to the already burgeoning 10 retail shops, some of which, by the way, were not transparently installed. Under the guise of providing Affordable Housing (# for Itself), if granted its wish the Rosewood expansion would set a precedent for the malling (and mauling) of Montecito. In French the word “mal” means bad. In this case the French are right.