As part of Santa Barbara County’s efforts to streamline its land use permit protocols, the Board of Supervisors will consider abandoning one procedure Planning Commissioner John Parke has considered “a time-waster” for years, he said.
“On appealable hearings,” Parke said at the Planning Commission’s Oct. 28 meeting, “I would say of the appeals that I’ve seen, which is less than 10, of single-family residences, at least half were things that all of you would find to be completely unmeritorious, … next to worthless.”
Among a list of proposed zoning ordinance amendments, commissioners voted 4-0 (Planning Commissioner Vincent Martinez was absent) to recommend that the Board of Supervisors allow an option for the Planning Commission to grant “non-appealable” land use permits when approving certain single-family home projects.
The recommendation excludes proposals for single-family home developments subject to CEQA review or located in coastal areas under special jurisdictions.
In recent years, one example of an “unmeritorious” appeal Parke recalled is a 2021 appeal that forced a Santa Ynez-based couple to delay building a single-family home—drawn from county-approved plans—on their rural property by at least six months.
The appellant, Jan Vandebos Naify, accused her neighbor’s plan of demolishing a barn to make way for the new house as presenting asbestos health risks, which county staff refuted.
Naify also cited the project’s outdoor swimming pool as not conforming to Solvang’s municipal code, even though the project is located in the unincorporated Santa Ynez Valley.
Before the county Planning Commission unanimously rejected the appeal, Parke said at the time that he believed if Vandebos’ accusations were heard during a litigation proceeding, her claims “would border on malicious prosecution.”
Four years later, Naify submitted a separate appeal when the same couple obtained a county permit to add two bathrooms to their house, delaying the project by three months.
County staff refuted each of her claims during a hearing in 2025, including that the project posed fire hazards and that she wasn’t properly noticed.
During the unanimous vote to deny the appeal, former Planning Commissioner Roy Reed said, “When I first got this, I thought, why is this even before us? Since it’s quite obvious none of the issues have any degree of merit.”
While discussing the proposed non-appealable permit route, Parke said at the Oct. 28 meeting what “pained” him the most about holding hearings on “those unmeritorious appeals wasn’t what we went through, but then to understand that no matter what we said about the quality of the appeal, they would then appeal to the Board of Supervisors.”
“Then they have to stop everything they’re doing and take up these appeals,” Parke said. “Even of the appeals that I thought were somewhat meritorious, arguable, … we’d find that one side or the other was absolutely firm in their opposition to any form of settlement and weren’t going to change. And they didn’t care how we ruled.”
Before voting to move the recommendation forward, commissioners agreed to Parke’s suggestion to add language that ensures current noticing protocols remain intact for projects that would become eligible for a non-appealable permit.
“I’m asking to retain that in some form, … notice for all single-family residences, as we do now,” Parke said. “Why do I think this is important? Because I don’t want the public seeing development and engaging in conspiratorial thinking, you know, that the developer is paying off the staff, or staff is doing something, and … have no way of finding out, ‘What is this project across the street from me?’”
County Director of Planning and Development Lisa Plowman told commissioners that “it’ll be very important on that notice to make it clear the limits of what that notice allows.”
“We’d be very clear that it’s not appealable, but it gives you an opportunity to understand what’s happening adjacent to your property,” Plowman said. “It just creates a place for people to have a conversation before everything’s approved and sticks are going into the ground, … an opportunity to at least talk to their neighbors about a plan or ask a staff person about it.”
This article appears in November 5 – November 12, 2026.
