Santa Barbara Talks: Architect Brian Cearnal Talks Housing, Hotels

Architect Brian Cearnal explains the drama behind the 250-room hotel project proposed for Santa Barbara's waterfront. The Wright family has proposed merging six lots to build 250 hotel rooms, but the city planning commissioners expressed concern that this site would better serve the community if it were housing. Cearnal walks us through the history of the site, and why hotel is preferred over housing. He also shares what's going on with La Cumbre Plaza, and the proposed 695-unit site envisioned for the area. Cearnal is one of Santa Barbara's most cherished architects, with four decades of experience designing buildings. Joshua Molina is journalist who currently writes for Noozhawk and teaches journalism at Santa Barbara City College and Cal State University, Northridge. He formerly covered politics and land use for the San Jose Mercury News. Santa Barbara Talks is an independently owned podcast where Molina looks to bring together voices from all perspectives to discuss and provide solutions to the challenges related to housing, education, transportation and other community issues. Subscribe to his podcast here and consider a contribution here.