By Mike Harris Friday, November 7th, 2025

Santa Barbara County housing leaders have launched The Home Team, an advocacy organization dedicated to building public support and driving policy change to ensure that residents have access to affordable homes.

Announced Sept. 30, the new group comes at a time when a number of large housing projects in the tri-county region are seeking approval, have been green-lighted or are under construction to address the area’s acute housing shortage.

They total about 11,000 units, including affordable ones, which housing experts say is a good start, but hardly sufficient.

“We’re doing better now, but it’s absolutely not enough,” Linda Braunschweiger, CEO of the Housing Trust Fund Ventura County, told the Business Times Oct. 27.

“With the high cost of living and a shortage of actual units for affordable housing, affordable housing will continue to be at a crisis level for all three counties,” she said.

The nonprofit trust fund leverages public-private partnerships throughout Ventura County to provide low-cost loans early in the housing development cycle.

The Home Team was created by a steering committee of cross-sector leaders representing philanthropy, housing development, business, and community advocacy. 

The group came together following the Santa Barbara Foundation’s 2023 Housing Affordability Report, which identified the absence of a coordinated, countywide effort to champion local housing solutions.

The Home Team will focus on coalescing the public, policymakers, and private partners to accelerate housing production, preserve existing affordability, and advance policies that make it possible for residents across the socioeconomic spectrum to call Santa Barbara County home.

A particular focus will be on community members who are homeless and very low-income.

“The Home Team is about aligning our community around shared purpose,” said Jackie Carrera, president and CEO of the Santa Barbara Foundation and a steering committee member. “Housing is foundational to every aspect of a thriving community – from our workforce to our schools to our small businesses and every local employer,” she said.

Several of the large housing projects, all of which have affordable components, are in Santa Barbara County.

Very early in the development process, The Solomon Hills project proposes a new community south of unincorporated Orcutt near Vandenberg Space Force Base consisting of 4,000 residential units, including affordable ones.

The project application, which is incomplete, is under review by county departments.

The nearly 1,500-unit master-planned Blosser Ranch project in Santa Maria was approved by the city’s planning commission in late 2023. Planning staff are now reviewing the building applications. 

Canfield Development says the project will include homes, apartments, affordable units and retail and is expected to be completed in 2030. 

The City of Santa Barbara, meanwhile, is advancing a plan to redevelop the Paseo Nuevo Mall into a mixed-use project in the heart of downtown. 

The proposal includes 233 market-rate housing units, 80 affordable units, and more than 125,000 square feet of retail space, along with new public amenities and open space.

The Santa Barbara City Council on Aug. 5 approved the project description and authorized staff to negotiate a disposition and development agreement.

The project remains under review, with additional opportunities for public input, environmental review, and design approvals to follow.

The long-planned Burton Ranch project plans to bring about 450 single-family and multi-family homes to Lompoc, with a 10% affordable housing element. 

The City Council in January 2024 extended the project’s development agreement for 10 years. 

City staff is working with the Burton Ranch partners to move the project forward. An anticipated construction date hasn’t been set.

Other large housing developments in the region include:

• · The 2,050-unit Harvest at Limoneira master planned community in Santa Paula. Most of the development is single-family units for sale, with some rentals. Homebuilder Lennar is one of the primary builders of Phase 1 of the project, a 50/50 joint venture between lemon and avocado grower Limoneira and The Lewis Group of Companies. Lennar has purchased 867 single-family homesites. The venture has now closed 1,261 residential homesite sales.
• · The 2024 Dana Reserve Specific Plan, which was adopted in April 2024 by the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors. It calls for the phased development of a 288-acre master-planned community in unincorporated Nipomo with up to 1,370 residential units and 110,000-203,000 square feet of commercial and non-residential floor area. The project from developer NKT Commercial offers homes at a wide range of prices, from moderate income to about 200 low and very low income units. The board on Nov. 4 tentatively approved an amendment to the specific plan, spurred by lawsuits, which reduces the residential unit count from 1,370 to 1,242.
• · The 755-unit Hitch Ranch development in Moorpark, which includes 372 single-family homes for sale and 383 apartments for rent, including 113 affordable units. The development was approved by the City Council in 2022. At the time, it was owned by Comstock Homes, which later sold it to Lennar.Grading began in September.
• · The 420-unit T.O. Ranch development on the 12-acre site of a long-shuttered Kmart store in Thousand Oaks. All the units will be rentals, including 54 affordable units. The project from developer IMT Capital V Hampshire also includes 15,000 square feet of commercial space, making it the largest mixed-use project in the city’s history. Construction is underway and the project is expected to open in 2027.

Braunschweiger said one of the biggest challenges in financing affordable housing in California is that the state doesn’t have a dedicated, reliable source of funding for such projects.

She said the corporate community needs to consider investing in it.

“Instead of investing all of their funding on Wall Street, consider investing locally,” Braunschweiger said.

The Housing Trust Fund Ventura County, earlier this year, announced the approval of two loans of a combined $6.7 million to create 188 new affordable housing units with two new developments, Casa Aliento Apartments in Oxnard, and Camino De Salud in an unincorporated area.

Niree Kodaverdian is a research manager at Los Angeles-based Beacon Economics, whose areas of expertise include housing.

She said that the greater the supply of housing, even if they’re all market rate units, increases affordability.

“Because you’re increasing the supply, which is pulling the market price downward essentially,” Kodaverdian said.

Thus, the 11,000 units in the tri-county housing pipeline are a step in the right direction, she said.

“And even if there isn’t a noticeable decrease in prices, it at least prevents prices from growing as quickly as they were,” Kodaverdian said.

San Luis Obispo County, meanwhile, is advancing a comprehensive set of measures updating zoning and building codes to streamline housing development, including affordable, in unincorporated areas, according to Reach, a Central Coast economic development group.

The measures build on the Housing and Infrastructure Regional Framework that Reach helped develop, the nonprofit said in its July newsletter.

“It’s a standout example of what’s possible when local government and stakeholders work in sync – and a model we’re eager to replicate across the region,” Reach says.

Maricela Morales, founding director of The Home Team, said, “There is tremendous opportunity to build the momentum for housing solutions in Santa Barbara County at this moment in time.

“The Home Team is here to channel that energy — to connect people, shape solutions, and make housing attainable for everyone who calls this county home,” she said.

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