The planned new home of the Isla Vista Foot Patrol, a UCSB-Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s project, will mark the first time in IVFP’s nearly 40-year history that the force will be situated in a building expressly designed for its needs, according to Commander Dominick Palera, head of south county operations for the Sheriff’s Department.

“Since the 1970s we’ve moved (IVFP) three times, mostly to store fronts we have remodeled,” he said. “This will be truly the first time we’ve had a facility designed for law enforcement, and it’ll look friendly and be green.”

Palera and John Ford, the department’s construction project manager, describe what will be a two-story, semi-Spanish style structure of 5,300 square feet with an additional 1,400 square feet of covered, secure loading area for patrol vehicles. The university is in the process of granting the Sheriff’s Department a 40-year lease for the county-funded building on what is now the eastern end of the I.V. Theater’s parking lot. The land involved is around one-third of an acre.

A combined Notice of Impending Development and Long Range Development Plan Amendment detailing the proposed building and changes for the parking lot is available for review at UCSB’s Davidson Library Government Information Center, as well as other local libraries. The public comment period will end on Jan. 17, 2007, and comments may be sent to Shari Hammond, senior planner, at shari.hammond@planning.ucsb.edu by that date.

Though media reports last month suggested that a significant portion of the proposed police station would be given over to a “holding tank” for arrestees, the plans indicate only two rooms for that purpose with the larger one designed for no more than four people. Property storage claims much more space.

“We’ll have room for a lobby, separate interview rooms, and lockers for men and women officers,” said Palera, who noted that when fully staffed the sheriff currently provides IVFP with 14 officers while six come from UCSB. The $3.5-million facility will be county-owned during the course of the lease, but in the end revert to the university.

With the reconfigured parking lot, IVFP employees and guests will have 15 parking spaces; UCSB will retain 19 parking spaces and room for approximately 220 bicycles.