Keeping count of how many softballs land in their backyards became an accidental hobby for several residents of Knollwood Terrace, a townhome community near St. Joseph High School in Orcutt.
Some condo dwellers make an effort to return stray balls to the school, while others keep them stored away in a bag or box. Eleanor Lind and her husband, Andy Philpot, have collected 15 balls since the school unveiled its softball stadium in March 2025, while one nearby neighbor’s tally gradually mounted to 30.
“You can’t enjoy your backyard while a game’s being played because you’re afraid of being hit,” Lind told the Sun. “If the field was there three years ago, we would not have bought this place.”
Lind and Philpot moved into their condo in 2023, two years before St. Joseph High School finished its new softball field. Prior to that, the school held its home games at venues elsewhere, including at St. Louis de Montfort Catholic School. Both campuses are associated with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
A year into the field’s use, Santa Barbara County’s Planning and Development Department mailed a letter to residents of Knollwood Terrace informing them of a permit review procedure that “may affect your property.”
The early April notice summarized the school’s application for a project amendment that would “allow for the validation” of softball facility components, including structures like fences and dugouts.
Upon reading the notice, Lind said she found it odd that neither she nor any neighbors she knows got this type of letter before the softball field was developed.
That’s because the county never received a permit application from St. Joseph High School to construct the field, according to the Planning and Development Department.
“Because no application was submitted before construction, the project did not undergo the county’s standard discretionary permit review process prior,” county Senior Planner Soren Kringel told the Sun in an email interview.
In response to an “increase in concerns expressed by the neighbors,” the county is currently working with St. Joseph High School “to address foul ball containment,” Kringel said.
Knollwood Terrace homeowners association (HOA) board member David Whitham told the Sun that residents began voicing their concerns about softballs hitting their condos—including cracking roof tiles, damaging walls, and breaking potted plants and one resident’s window—as early as last summer.
‘This isn’t just a permit situation where they built something they shouldn’t have. This is a dangerous situation. … It’s inevitable. We’re going to have an injury.’
—David Whitham, Orcutt resident
According to Whitham, St. Joseph High School’s request for a project amendment—filed in December 2025—is essentially asking for retroactive approval of softball field structures that already exist.
“St. Joseph school never had a permit to build that field,” Whitham said. “When you apply for a permit or an amendment to a permit, you notice the people that it’s affected, and they have a chance for an open public forum to object to, to support, to ask questions. And our residents never got that opportunity.”
While the school waits for the county to review and approve or deny the application, the Knollwood Terrace HOA asked both parties in mid-April to suspend all activities at the field on the grounds that the venue isn’t currently permitted. The HOA also emphasized residents’ safety concerns in its requests—via emails, phone calls, and voicemails to both the school and the county—which Whitham described as having “fallen on deaf ears” as of early May.
On May 1, the school’s girls’ varsity softball program hosted its last home game of the season, versus San Luis Obispo’s Mission College Prep Catholic High School, as scheduled. Outside of softball season events, the school holds year-round training, youth camps, and other community programs on the field.
“This isn’t just a permit situation where they built something they shouldn’t have. This is a dangerous situation,” Whitham said. “It’s inevitable. We’re going to have an injury. … Some of our residents say they’ve had near misses with their kids in the backyard.”
One of the softball field’s most concerning traits, Whitham said, is that it’s as close as 3 feet away from some condo residents’ property lines along East Foster Road.
Pursuant to the land use code, the school needed approval from the county for rear-yard and side setbacks of less than 15 feet from neighboring properties. In its retroactive permit application, the school included a request for a permit “modification” to “reduce the northern property line (side) setback to 3 feet” to accommodate existing softball field structures.
“They built a grandstand—with a 3-foot setback—adjacent to [someone’s] backyard,” Whitham said. “The top five levels of the grandstand look right down into her backyard. She’s got a rather big dog, and one time it was by her fence, and one of the spectators was petting her dog—from the grandstand.”
Conversations between St. Joseph High School officials and Knollwood Terrace HOA members about improving stray ball containment included an April 16 phone call between Whitham and Assistant Principal of Athletics Tom Mott.
According to Whitham, Mott told Whitham that the county authorized the school to “immediately” erect higher netting to improve safety, but it would take at least three weeks for the netting materials to arrive. This delayed the installation date to after softball season ended.
After the Sun reached out to both Mott and St. Joseph High School Principal Erinn Dougherty for comment, a representative of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles joined the email thread.
“St. Joseph High School remains committed to being a thoughtful community partner,” Media Relations Director Yannina Diaz stated on behalf of the Archdiocese, “maintaining open communication with neighbors and the homeowners association, and making good-faith efforts to address concerns.”
Diaz added that “bringing softball to the campus had been a goal for over a decade” and described the home softball field as “developed on land already designated for athletic use” before its completion in 2025.
When asked if the high school had any prior land designation that excused it from undergoing the permit application process for construction of the softball field, county Senior Planner Kringel told the Sun: “They are required to get a permit, … and the county is still reviewing this permit.”
As of May 1, the permit remained under review, said Kringel, who described St. Joseph High School’s application as seeking approval of “the as-built” softball field.
Kringel said that county enforcement staff investigated the softball field “after receiving a complaint,” and that investigation prompted the school to file its formal application for the permit review in December 2025.
“The school was cooperative and submitted their application,” Kringel said. “Thus, further enforcement was not necessary.”
Knollwood Terrace resident Whitham said he believes the county is setting a terrible precedent for developers to take an “ask for forgiveness, not permission” approach on future projects in the area.
“If [the county] retroactively approves this, that sends a really, really bad message, in terms of getting away with something like this,” Whitham said. “You pay for bad behavior. And that’s our stance on this. I’m sorry that it may affect other entities, like your softball team and others that want to use that field. But your bad behavior should have consequences.”
Reach Senior Staff Writer Caleb Wiseblood at cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in May 7 – May 14, 2026.