According to the preliminary court ruling that came down yesterday Goleta must allow developers of the The Residences at Sandpiper to go ahead with their project. In his decision Santa Barbara Superior Court Judge William McLafferty questioned why city officials worked for months with the builders of the development to shepherd the housing proposal toward approval, only to deny it in a December 2002 Council vote.
“Having committed itself to one position…the city could not then deliberately change its position,” the judge wrote. “The court is puzzled by the city’s failure to make any reasonable explanation as to why it worked with the petitioner for many months, and then unaccountably made a 180-degree change in position with respect to the project.”