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Goleta Growing Pains
| After almost two years as a City, Goleta still has many hurdles before it completes its’ general plan which is state-mandated and sets up the big picture blueprint for traffic, safety, noise and land-use rules. The plan is basically all the details that embody self-rule. So far the City Council has been reluctant to approve development proposals without the general plan therefore making approval of the plan the five-member panel’s most pressing job. Council members have signaled that their moratorium on commercial construction, initiated in early 2002, may be extended in some form for a fifth time before the end of the year. Revitalization of the Old Town section of Goleta, a concept that predates the city appears stalled as a Santa Barbara architect-developer awaits the fate of his Hollister Avenue hotel-condo proposal. Resident Tom Miller says that the building ban and other signals from the city threaten to alienate nervous developer-investors and damage Goleta’s reputation in the business community. |