The Montecito Board of Architectural Review, from a builder who has been through it
Most owners arrive thinking the permit is the obstacle. In Montecito it rarely is. The calendar is.
Two processes, not one
Montecito is unincorporated, so building and planning go through the County, not the City of Santa Barbara: different intake, correction cycles and fees. It is the first thing owners get wrong.
Within County review sits the Montecito Board of Architectural Review. It applies the Montecito Community Plan to exterior design, siting, materials and landscape, and asks for no particular style. The plan, adopted in 1992, sets goal G-M-1: to “maintain and preserve the residential, low intensity, semi-rural character” of Montecito.
The board normally meets every two to three weeks, and the County posts the calendar. In our experience the board’s calendar governs. A correction you answer in an afternoon can still cost weeks if it sends you back to the calendar.
What the board looks at
Five things, again and again: scale, against the lot and its neighbors; how the building meets sloping ground; the roof, a visible fifth elevation; materials and their color values; and built form against mature landscape, oaks above all.
The board will not design your house. Arrive with a clear position; a hedged one invites the board to decide for you.
What decides the design before design begins
Fire district access
Montecito Fire Protection District rules on access, water supply and defensible space can decide the driveway and where the house sits. Learn them at feasibility; learned in plan check, they mean redrawing.
Grading and drainage
Grading and drainage review carries real weight, and reasonably so. Move significant earth, change how water crosses the parcel or build in a drainage course, and expect the engineering to be read closely.
Coastal jurisdiction
Southern Montecito is in the Coastal Zone: a Coastal Development Permit and, in appealable areas, possible review beyond the local decision. The parcel number tells you whether it applies. Establish it before you commission anything.
What it means for your schedule
With design review and grading but no coastal complication, plan on several months to more than a year of entitlement before construction. The spread comes from how complete the submission is, and from the calendar. A fixed duration quoted before anyone has seen the parcel is a hope, not a schedule.
So front-load. In Phase 01, before drawings, use the address to name every body that will touch the project. It costs little, and it is the difference between a schedule that survives the County and one that does not.
Related: who permits and reviews a house, town by town, and our pages for Montecito.
Built by Matt Newman. Licensed since 2001. Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, twenty years on this coast, and on every AMN site himself. One name on the contract. His story
Send us the address. We'll tell you the truth about it.
Email it to purchasing@amnbuild.com. Matt reads it himself and writes back within two business days.
- Same dayMatt confirms he has it, and flags anything obvious that is missing.
- Within two business daysA written reading of your parcel: jurisdiction, review bodies, an order of cost and the permit path.
- Then nothing, unless you askNo follow-up sequence, no call from anyone else. The reading is yours to keep.
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