They illegally allowed the Santa Barbara Fire Department to use the exisiting house as a practice project - with no permit to do so.
Complaints to the City and even direct conversations to Mayor Marty Bloom proved fruitless. Here are some actual emails:
They also encroached on our property, which was confirmed by a surveyor which WE had to pay for.
We live next door to a house with huge holes in the roof for more than a year.
I will cc the City Administrator Jim Armstrong and the acting Community Development Director Dave Gustafson.
Jim & Dave,
The project next door to Mr. Bosset has conditions of approval on their project. These have been violated again and again over a period of many months. The conditions are normal---time of construction, etc. but the workers do not adhere to them. The project is at 504 E. Arrellaga.
I hope you can get a phone number for Mr. Bosset to call. He won't call on every little thing, but on the big violations. And maybe someone has to speak with the contractor.
Thanks,
Marty
We never heard a word from Jim nor Dave
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Ms Blum!
Sunday we had workers on site – we let it slide. Tonight we had workers on the site at almost 6pm working with flashlights – a clear violation of the Conditions of Approval for this project. We called the Police as the Building Department as Larry Cassidy of the Building Department instructed us to do. Officer Feller arrived 1-1/2 hours after the call. He informed us that we should not call the Police as their violation of the COA is a civil matter and not criminal, which we understand. He basically said that the Building Department is responsible but “passes the buck” to the Police Department because they are not themselves available after hours. We
I request from you specific instructions on who is responsible for enforcing the conditions of approval, and how they are to be contacted after hours since this is obviously when these violations take place.
We feel that we are being given “the run-around”, that Conditions of Approval are meaningless as the Building Department of the City of Santa Barbara refuses to enforce them. At this point we feel almost an obligation to inform the public of how the city is not managing this project – particularly those in our neighborhood who along with us, will be living with the Cottage Saint Francis project.
If this is a test of how the City is going to handle the MUCH MUCH larger Cottage Hospital project then our City has failed miserably.
Thanks as always,
Jeff Bosset
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They are doing nothing but lying and stalling and have done so since the beginning. Harassment has come from them not from us. Thankfully, u were onsite when Jeff yelled at the sub – from our deck! Nothing happened after u left our house. The point is that they have and are continuing to illegally encroach on our property - without our permission and have failed every single time to show any act of good faith while continuing to provide us w/ an extreme liability – steep drops & holes (no they have not attempted to fix since u requested) in our driveway/property. Our cameras (which have been up since summer) are focused in our driveway and property line for security – especially since our car was vandalized w/ diesel fuel shortly after we filed our lawsuit. I think all these emails from Brigham are just more attempts to not settle. This is unbelievable. Dissapointing is not the word I would use – they were out of stalling time – typical and par for the course. Please remind them of everything that they have done unlawfully.
Since u were here last, the dirt on the property line has decayed more and now their fence sways back & forth in the winds & bangs into the black chain link fence.
The holes off our driveway are even more dangerous than before and the concrete damage is even greater.
Our insurance agent keeps calling to see about meeting with us – I believe they want to see if we’ve fixed the liability which I’d pointed out to them.
The longer we let them encroach the worse this gets for us.
At this moment in time, it is unbelievable to me that this “settlement agreement” is going to happen and despite your voiced concerns about going to court I’m feeling as if u & Brigham are pushing to go to court. Please do not FW me anymore of Brigham’s emails – u can fw them to Jeff only; I am not interested in their lies & attempts to make us the bad guy. Again, am not familiar w/ lawyers & the law but the fact that this “negotiation” has gone on so long really makes me feel as if u r not interested in getting this matter resolved as well.
Feel free to invite Brigham to exit from the passenger’s side of a car in our driveway and then he can tell me how we are “obsessed” and who has caused whom danger.
Unhappily yours,
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About a year later, they demolished the home. We now had a vacant lot next us for about another year. We dealt nightly with partiers, graffiti idiots, and felt very unsafe at this point.
Finally they started to build what is now known as Arrellaga & Olive.
They illegally removed more than 150 feet of 15 foot tall, 4 foot thick hedges on our property. Again, the city of Santa Barbara did nothing and turned its head the other direction.
Chaparral Construction simply removed the stakes. We researched this company and found that they had been sued more than 30 times in just ten years.
Suddenly things started making sense. As we inquired with other contractors - not a one had anything good to say about Jock Angus or Chaparral Construction. Another bad sign.
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