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Isla Vista, California
Isla Vista (English: /ˈaɪlə ˈvɪstə/ EYE-luh VIS-tuh; Spanish: [ˈisla ˈβista], lit. "island view") is an unincorporated community in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. As of 2020 census, the community had a population of 15,500. For statistical purposes, the United States Census Bureau has defined the community as a census-designated place (CDP). The majority of residents are college students at the University of California, Santa Barbara, or Santa Barbara City College. The beachside community of Isla Vista lies on a flat plateau about 30 feet (9 m) in elevation, separated from the beach by a bluff.
Isla Vista enjoys a Mediterranean climate and often has slightly less precipitation than Santa Barbara and Goleta. Isla Vista is located on a south-facing portion of the Santa Barbara County coast, between Coal Oil Point and Campus Point in view of the Channel Islands. During El Niño years, precipitation in Isla Vista can be excessive and potentially dangerous. Some homes and apartments built on the south side of Del Playa Drive, most popular with students due to their direct ocean views, are built on eroding bluffs thirty to sixty feet above the Pacific Ocean. Recent erosion has exposed foundation supports in several of the properties closest to the nearby UC Santa Barbara campus.
As Isla Vista is on the south coast of Santa Barbara County, which has some of the highest housing prices in the United States, the student population shares densely packed housing with a working class Hispanic population. Since Isla Vista has not been annexed by either Goleta or Santa Barbara City and remains unincorporated, only Santa Barbara County funds are available for civic projects. While the main campus is to the east, the community is surrounded on three sides by university property governed by the state Board of Regents.
Isla Vista is home to a student housing cooperative, the Santa Barbara Student Housing Coop, as well as a food cooperative, the Isla Vista Food Co-op.
The earliest human occupants of Isla Vista were the Chumash or their forebears[citation needed]. They called the Isla Vista mesa Anisq'oyo (related to the Chumash word for "manzanita") and had permanent settlements near Cheadle Hall and the 217 entrance on the UCSB Campus; these villages were collectively called Heliyik. Eventually the Franciscan Fathers forced the Chumash to move to the Santa Barbara Mission.
The Isla Vista mesa was part of the Mexican land grant Rancho Dos Pueblos made in 1842 to Nicolas A. Den. Den's son, Alfonso Den, inherited the land. He and some of his nine siblings were plaintiffs in a famous lawsuit; when they were minors their land had been illegally sold in 1869 by the administrator of their estate, Charles E. Huse, to Col. William Welles Hollister, namesake of Hollister Avenue in Goleta, the Hollister Ranch, and Hollister, California. San Francisco lawyer Thomas B. Bishop sued Hollister on behalf of the Den children in 1876, and won the case in 1885. Bishop took much of the prime land owned by the Den children as a legal fee, and to this day some of that land, in the city of Goleta near Glen Annie Road, is called the Bishop Ranch. The least attractive land was left to the Den children, and that included the Rincon Ranch, which was at that time the name of the entire Isla Vista mesa, from present-day UCSB west to Coal Oil Point. The Rincon (Spanish for angle or corner) is the corner where Storke Road turns into El Colegio; until 1930 or so, Storke to El Colegio was the only road into Isla Vista, because other roads such as Los Carneros or Ward Memorial did not exist, because the Goleta Slough prevented passage. The Rincon Ranch had very little fresh water, was marginal for agriculture, and was split between three of the Den children: Augusto Den, who had mental disabilities, got the land that now forms the UCSB Main Campus and Alfonso got the land that is now Isla Vista.
A portion of Alfonso Den's land was purchased by John and Pauline Ilharreguy, residents of Fillmore in 1915. The Ilharreguys arranged in 1925 the subdivision of the central tract they named Isla Vista (ungrammatical Spanish), and also laid out and named the four streets closest to the bluff: Del Playa (ungrammatical Spanish), Sabado Tarde, Trigo, and Pasado. The tract between Isla Vista and today's UCSB campus, owned by two Santa Barbara attorneys and partners Alfred W. Robertson (namesake of UCSB's Robertson Gymnasium) and James R. Thompson, was subdivided and named Ocean Terrace in 1926. The third tract that comprises today's Isla Vista, Orilla Del Mar, to the west of the Isla Vista tract, was owned by two Santa Barbara sisters, Harriett (who designed a number of "fairy tale" homes on the South Coast of Santa Barbara County) and Brenda Moody, and was subdivided in 1926.
The Isla Vista subdivisions are the earliest urban subdivisions performed in the Goleta Valley in the 20th century. The narrow streets of Isla Vista are characteristic of 1920s land planning. Plans for water, electricity, road building, and sewage were not made in the 1920s; the subdivision was speculative. Some of the speculation was related to ocean-front real estate, but an equally important motive was the likelihood of oil reserves' being accessible from Isla Vista property. To aid speculation, the lots in the subdivision were narrow, and mineral rights were pooled among blocks of lots. Some oil was found, but the wells did not sustain oil production, unlike the very productive Ellwood Oil Field just to the west of Isla Vista. An oil deposit about one mile (1.6 km) south of Isla Vista under the Santa Barbara Channel, known as the South Ellwood field, was eventually found, but has never been fully developed, due to local political opposition after the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill. The South Ellwood field contains upward of 100 million barrels (16,000,000 m3) of oil, and attempts by ARCO (in the 1980s) and by Mobil (in the 1990s) to develop the field have been rebuffed by local opposition.
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Isla Vista, California
Isla Vista (English: /ˈaɪlə ˈvɪstə/ EYE-luh VIS-tuh; Spanish: [ˈisla ˈβista], lit. "island view") is an unincorporated community in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. As of 2020 census, the community had a population of 15,500. For statistical purposes, the United States Census Bureau has defined the community as a census-designated place (CDP). The majority of residents are college students at the University of California, Santa Barbara, or Santa Barbara City College. The beachside community of Isla Vista lies on a flat plateau about 30 feet (9 m) in elevation, separated from the beach by a bluff.
Isla Vista enjoys a Mediterranean climate and often has slightly less precipitation than Santa Barbara and Goleta. Isla Vista is located on a south-facing portion of the Santa Barbara County coast, between Coal Oil Point and Campus Point in view of the Channel Islands. During El Niño years, precipitation in Isla Vista can be excessive and potentially dangerous. Some homes and apartments built on the south side of Del Playa Drive, most popular with students due to their direct ocean views, are built on eroding bluffs thirty to sixty feet above the Pacific Ocean. Recent erosion has exposed foundation supports in several of the properties closest to the nearby UC Santa Barbara campus.
As Isla Vista is on the south coast of Santa Barbara County, which has some of the highest housing prices in the United States, the student population shares densely packed housing with a working class Hispanic population. Since Isla Vista has not been annexed by either Goleta or Santa Barbara City and remains unincorporated, only Santa Barbara County funds are available for civic projects. While the main campus is to the east, the community is surrounded on three sides by university property governed by the state Board of Regents.
Isla Vista is home to a student housing cooperative, the Santa Barbara Student Housing Coop, as well as a food cooperative, the Isla Vista Food Co-op.
The earliest human occupants of Isla Vista were the Chumash or their forebears[citation needed]. They called the Isla Vista mesa Anisq'oyo (related to the Chumash word for "manzanita") and had permanent settlements near Cheadle Hall and the 217 entrance on the UCSB Campus; these villages were collectively called Heliyik. Eventually the Franciscan Fathers forced the Chumash to move to the Santa Barbara Mission.
The Isla Vista mesa was part of the Mexican land grant Rancho Dos Pueblos made in 1842 to Nicolas A. Den. Den's son, Alfonso Den, inherited the land. He and some of his nine siblings were plaintiffs in a famous lawsuit; when they were minors their land had been illegally sold in 1869 by the administrator of their estate, Charles E. Huse, to Col. William Welles Hollister, namesake of Hollister Avenue in Goleta, the Hollister Ranch, and Hollister, California. San Francisco lawyer Thomas B. Bishop sued Hollister on behalf of the Den children in 1876, and won the case in 1885. Bishop took much of the prime land owned by the Den children as a legal fee, and to this day some of that land, in the city of Goleta near Glen Annie Road, is called the Bishop Ranch. The least attractive land was left to the Den children, and that included the Rincon Ranch, which was at that time the name of the entire Isla Vista mesa, from present-day UCSB west to Coal Oil Point. The Rincon (Spanish for angle or corner) is the corner where Storke Road turns into El Colegio; until 1930 or so, Storke to El Colegio was the only road into Isla Vista, because other roads such as Los Carneros or Ward Memorial did not exist, because the Goleta Slough prevented passage. The Rincon Ranch had very little fresh water, was marginal for agriculture, and was split between three of the Den children: Augusto Den, who had mental disabilities, got the land that now forms the UCSB Main Campus and Alfonso got the land that is now Isla Vista.
A portion of Alfonso Den's land was purchased by John and Pauline Ilharreguy, residents of Fillmore in 1915. The Ilharreguys arranged in 1925 the subdivision of the central tract they named Isla Vista (ungrammatical Spanish), and also laid out and named the four streets closest to the bluff: Del Playa (ungrammatical Spanish), Sabado Tarde, Trigo, and Pasado. The tract between Isla Vista and today's UCSB campus, owned by two Santa Barbara attorneys and partners Alfred W. Robertson (namesake of UCSB's Robertson Gymnasium) and James R. Thompson, was subdivided and named Ocean Terrace in 1926. The third tract that comprises today's Isla Vista, Orilla Del Mar, to the west of the Isla Vista tract, was owned by two Santa Barbara sisters, Harriett (who designed a number of "fairy tale" homes on the South Coast of Santa Barbara County) and Brenda Moody, and was subdivided in 1926.
The Isla Vista subdivisions are the earliest urban subdivisions performed in the Goleta Valley in the 20th century. The narrow streets of Isla Vista are characteristic of 1920s land planning. Plans for water, electricity, road building, and sewage were not made in the 1920s; the subdivision was speculative. Some of the speculation was related to ocean-front real estate, but an equally important motive was the likelihood of oil reserves' being accessible from Isla Vista property. To aid speculation, the lots in the subdivision were narrow, and mineral rights were pooled among blocks of lots. Some oil was found, but the wells did not sustain oil production, unlike the very productive Ellwood Oil Field just to the west of Isla Vista. An oil deposit about one mile (1.6 km) south of Isla Vista under the Santa Barbara Channel, known as the South Ellwood field, was eventually found, but has never been fully developed, due to local political opposition after the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill. The South Ellwood field contains upward of 100 million barrels (16,000,000 m3) of oil, and attempts by ARCO (in the 1980s) and by Mobil (in the 1990s) to develop the field have been rebuffed by local opposition.
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