The Cottage Health System plan to knock down St. Francis Medical Center and build up to 141 homes has outraged some of the local neighbors. The neighbor’s concerns center around the issues of compatibility with the surrounding neighborhood, traffic congestion and affordable housing.
Initially Cottage Health systems said that the homes would be for middle-income employees of the system who couldn’t afford to buy a house in Santa Barbara. But now the hospital officials are talking about building houses that today would sell for upward of $800,000.
A concept review in front of the Planning Commission is scheduled for Dec. 18. The stated goal of Cottage Health Systems is to “maximize the number of Cottage work force units to help us with our recruitment and retention of health care workers” Mr. Biscaro a spokesperson for Cottage said.