Contributing Writer

For Oscar Delgado, a chance encounter led to a safe harbor late in life.

Delgado was once Rona Barrett’s gardener when she lived in Beverly Hills, some 30 years ago. Now he and his wife Toni are residents of Barrett’s affordable housing project, Golden Inn and Village, and Delgado continues to care for all the plants in the garden, purely for the love of gardening.

Born in El Paso, Delgado moved with his family to Selma, Calif., then to West Los Angeles, where he attended University High School. After graduating he went straight to work doing gardening.

“I started part time with my cousin, who owned a gardening business, and he taught me all he knew,” said Delgado.

 “My stepfather owned a nursery and Rona Barrett called one day requesting to have a tree planted in her front yard. She had a beautiful home in Beverly Hills. It looked like a mansion to me. With the help of two other workers, we planted a big beautiful tree in her garden. She was so pleased with the work we had done, she hired me to do all of her gardening,” he said.

“Working in Rona Barrett’s garden was a pleasure. But the traffic between West Los Angeles and Beverly Hills was unbelievable. There was so much traffic, I couldn’t handle it, so I told her I had to quit and found her a new gardener,” he recalled. “I didn’t expect to see her again, but I did, 30 years later.”

“I like to read newspapers, and one day I discovered that Rona had built the Golden Inn and Village in Santa Ynez, which is affordable housing for seniors. I applied to the Housing Authority of the County of Santa Barbara and my wife, Toni, and I were accepted. We moved here in 2017.

“It was a surprise to Rona that my wife and I had moved in here. One day Rona came into the dining room and everyone got up to greet her, as they usually do. Rona recognized me right away and came over to me and gave me a big hug and kissed me on the cheek. I must have turned red. I will never forget it! I was so embarrassed being kissed by Rona in front of all those people,” he said, still flustered, remembering the moment.

Delgado, who will be 86 years young on July 6, busies himself daily doing all the gardening at the Golden Inn and Village, just because he loves it.

“I just love to garden. It keeps me moving and in shape. There are lots of things to do here, but I just love to be outside in the garden. I love to care for all the plants. I love the flowering ones best.

“There are also four herb gardens which I take care of as well. I have to have something to do during the day, not just sit and watch television. I just love to keep busy. I can’t help it, it’s just inside of me. I have to keep moving,” Delgado said.

“I get a lot of compliments about the garden. I keep it up for my own health and to make my surroundings beautiful,” he added.

 Delgado recalled some of the interesting people he met as a gardener in Beverly Hills.

“I worked for Vincent Price. He was such a nice man and so was his wife. His favorite thing to do was make desserts in the kitchen, and he called me over one day and asked me to taste what he had made. It was delicious. He just loved to make desserts.

“His wife wanted me to move into their home but I refused. I was married to my lovely wife Toni and had six daughters and one son,” said Delgado. “Maybe if I had of been single I would have taken them up on their offer.

“I also worked for Lee Van Cleef, who acted in many Western movies. His wife was so nice, she let my children use their pool. One day he called me in to his office to give me my check. His checkbook sat between two chrome-plated and loaded Western-style guns. He had to put his nose so close to the checkbook to write my check, and with those two guns sitting next to it, it made me nervous. I started to shake. So I had to quit. I don’t like guns, especially pointing in my direction. His wife was really nice, though,” he said.

“One day while working in a garden I noticed this big limousine pull up, and out stepped Ronald Reagan. He got out of the limo and waved to me. I never forgot that. He was quite a guy,” Delgado said.

“Gardening keeps me in shape. I’m headed for 90 and I’ll still be working. I love the area here in the Santa Ynez Valley. It’s beautiful country. The trees are so thick and beautiful. And it’s close to El Rancho Market and I can walk to Nielsen’s and the shops in that area and get some more exercise. I love it here,” he said.

“But mostly I love to garden, to make things beautiful.  It’s a win-win situation – everyone is happy and I’m healthy, and that’s all there is,” he concluded.

The post If you want to love where you live, plant a garden appeared first on Santa Ynez Valley Star.

Noozhawk Managing Editor

The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors has ordered the Golden Inn & Village development to make more adjustments to its lighting but denied an appeal of the project approval that was filed by two neighbors.

Mark Brooks and Patti Stewart, residents of Lucky Lane near the development at 860 N. Refugio Road in Santa Ynez, have concerns about the site’s lighting and drainage, and appealed the county Planning Commission’s decision to approve development plan revisions.

The Golden Inn & Village project completed affordable senior housing and family apartments on the site last year, and has a Phase 2 still to come with assisted-living and memory-care facilities.

The plans for the senior housing phase’s lighting and stormwater drainage were changed before construction, and the developers – including the Rona Barrett Foundation and the Housing Authority of the County of Santa Barbara and its project manager, RRM Design Group – went to the county afterward for approval on the changes.

The Planning Commission approved lighting plan revisions on Sept. 27, allowing the existing lighting, which is on 20-foot-tall poles instead of the original plan’s 8-foot poles.

Neighbors have also been concerned about the project’s drainage.

The development plans had included detaining some off-site stormwater, but it was dropped from construction after an engineer said it was a bad idea, according to Lisa Plowman of RRM Design Group.

“Unfortunately, the project approved was not the project that was built,” Stewart told the Board of Supervisors, calling the after-the-fact plan changes a bait-and-switch tactic.

Plowman said the approved dark-sky lighting plan didn’t meet safety standards, and when the architecture firm made changes, they didn’t alert planning staff.

The 20-foot light poles were in the version of the plans that were given permits and approval but were apparently overlooked, and both Plowman and county planning staff said they take lessons away from the breakdowns in communication.

At the March 20 meeting, the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to deny the appeal and uphold the project’s approval.

In the motion, supervisors also told Golden Inn & Village to change out one light pole for a motion sensor light and to add screening for the southernmost parking area, whether that is by landscaping or a wall.

Third District Supervisor Joan Hartmann asked developers and planning staff to think about lessons learned with this project to avoid making the same mistakes.

“Government is only as good as the people who watch over it,” she said, addressing Brooks and Stewart, and thanking them for their attention to the project.

Noozhawk managing editor Giana Magnoli can be reached at gmagnoli@noozhawk.com.

The post County supervisors uphold Golden Inn approval appeared first on Santa Ynez Valley Star.

Neighbors and developers of the Golden Inn and Village were given a month by the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission to sort out issues regarding lighting of the senior and affordable housing project that opened in the fall of 2016 at Highway 246 and Refugio Road.

The project will be brought back before the commission at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 27, at 123 E. Anapamu St. If the neighbors and developers haven’t found a solution, then the commission will.

Mark Brooks, a general contractor who represents his neighbors on Lucky Lane, just south of the Golden Inn and Village, said they agreed with what was planned and the purpose of the property, but not with what was built. They believe that Santa Barbara County allowed construction that did not comply with the project’s conditions of approval.

“I just want them to be accountable and notice more people than just the people that live within 300 feet, because this is a huge project for the valley and more than 20 neighbors should be noticed when changes have to be made,” Brooks said.

The problems cited by Brooks and his neighbors are the height and intensity of the outdoor lights; improperly constructed drainage that allows storm water to flood their properties; and the size of the buildings, which they say are bigger than what was permitted.

For example, the approved plans called for 44 light poles in the parking areas from 8 to 14 feet tall. Instead, the project has 25 pole lights that are 20 feet high, and the developer wants approval for that variation.

“The lighting plan had been changed and approved by the planning department … The shorter lights allowed for gaps in lighting, which especially for senior citizens isn’t appropriate. If we reduced the size of the poles it wouldn’t just be costly, but (would be) not to Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA) standards,” said Lisa Plowman of RRM Design Group, the agent for Golden Inn and Villages.

Plowman said in her presentation to the commission that once the landscaping matures in several years that the height of the lights won’t really be an impact on the skyline and blend into the trees. She said she has tried very hard to comply with Brooks’ requests and has changed details of the project several times to accommodate the neighbors to the south.

“We planted pepper trees along the back fencing, and even changed the type of fencing. We feel that once the trees mature, which the pepper trees have already filled in quite a bit, that Mr. Brooks and his neighbors won’t be impacted by lights,” Plowman said.

The project also uses automatic lights that dim to 80 percent capacity at dusk and then 50 percent capacity at 9 p.m. and only come up if there is motion sensed from a car driving by or a person walking. They immediately dim again, according to Heather Grey, lighting engineer for the project.

The Planning Commission also asked Plowman and her team to look at changing the color of the lights to a warmer color, and possibly painting the back of the buildings to a darker color as the current yellow color might have an impact on reflectiveness.

The commission also directed them to heed the advice of Nancy Emerson, a representative of the Save Our Stars group. Emerson presented a letter in which she suggests that the project reduce all of the existing lights to 50 percent while maintaining safety and security and to turn them off in the playground.

“There shouldn’t be children playing after 9 p.m. in the playground, so those are not necessary,” Emerson told the commission.

The project should also install shields on the building side of all the fixtures along the rear of the senior building that faces Lucky Lane and remove non-compliant “up lights” above the senior building’s rear entrance. Emerson also suggested removing the streetlights nearest the neighbors because they significantly “over light” the rural area with their light “trespassing” onto the neighbors’ property.

The commissioners asked Emerson to work with PG&E, which is responsible for the lights along the street.

Regarding the flooding, the commission heard reports from Santa Barbara County Flood Control officials who said they had done above and beyond what was required of the project. They also pointed out that the flooding issues existed before the project was built, and in fact have been lessened by the project.

“It’s unfortunate they (the neighbors) flooded, but it was flooded everywhere. The fact is Lucky Lane only has a 16-inch culvert, and the highway has a 24-inch culvert. Whether or not the Village was there, they would have flooded anyways. We actually installed several areas of energy dissipaters to slow down the water coming through the property, and the drainage basins are larger than requested,” Plowman said.

Plowman said the residents of Lucky Lane need to get together and look at increasing the size of their drainage culvert to avoid flooding in the future.

The size of the project also fluctuated, but according to the developer and the county’s Housing Authority they had to be increased to meet the California Tax Credit funding requirements related to unit size.

There weren’t any additional rooms built or common areas added, but the size of the rooms had to be adjusted to fit under the guidelines of “substantial conformity,” which allows discretion in projects, Plowman added.

Brooks argued that the amendments failed to meet the Substantial Conformity rule, which allows an additional 1,000 square feet or a maximum of 10 percent of the total project, whichever is less. The developer is asking for much more than either of those stipulations, he noted.

“In the scope of projects I see sizing change all the time because some projects have to meet certain requirements and regulations. This is not uncommon,” said Commissioner Dan Blough.

Plowman also noted there was an error in the staff report that said the approved senior building was to be 46,067 square feet, when in actuality it was approved for 48,067 square feet.

To read the entire staff report, log onto http://sbcountyplanning.org/PDF/boards/CntyPC/08-30-2017/17RVP-00000-00046/Staff%20Report.pdf.

The post Golden Inn neighbors, developers told to find solution appeared first on Santa Ynez Valley Star.

Mr. Geffen joins legendary singer-songwriter and social justice activist David Crosby and wife Jan in their financial support of the Rona Barrett Foundation through the nonprofit’s Golden Stars campaign.

“The David Geffen Foundation’s recognition of the Rona Barrett Foundation and vision for the first affordable housing campus for vulnerable seniors is a big step forward in making Hollywood and other billion dollar foundations aware of the need for greater support to solve a nationwide crisis in how we house and care for the very population that helped build this country,” said Rona Barrett, Founder and CEO of the Rona Barrett Foundation.

The Rona Barrett Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, was founded by Rona Barrett, the former premier entertainment industry reporter who has been a senior advocate for 20 years since retiring from the entertainment industry.

“Becoming a permanent part of the Golden Inn & Village will also touch the lives, every day, of seniors who need to know that they are not forgotten and alone in their golden years,” said Barrett.

The Golden Stars campaign provides opportunities for donors to be commemorated with a permanent plaque displaying their name next to the door of at one of the 60 Golden Inn & Village apartments, community rooms and other special features of the campus.

Mr. Geffen, one of the most successful entrepreneurs in every facet of the entertainment industry has dedicated major support to healthcare, the arts, civil liberties, HIV/AIDS, and issues of concern to the Jewish community; and has now added senior affordable housing and care services to his long list of philanthropic giving.

The Golden Inn & Village will provide a continuum of senior care services, a vibrant community center, on-site, multi-generational employee/family housing, and life enriching programs for low-income vulnerable seniors. The Golden Inn & Village is a project of the Rona Barrett Foundation in partnership with Housing Authority of the County of Santa Barbara and Surf Development.

The Rona Barrett Foundation is a non-profit organization that seeks to provide a solution to affordable housing and supportive services for seniors in need with the development of the Golden Inn & Village, where seniors may access a variety of care that meets their needs as they age in place. To become a Golden Star or learn more about the Golden Inn & Village, please visit www.ronabarrettfoundation.org.

The post David Geffen Foundation supporting Golden Inn and Village and SYV seniors appeared first on Santa Ynez Valley Star.