Santa Barbara has done its share
Casa Amara LLC’s own job ad plans for clients who are “local, from another state, or abroad.” Its website offers “an 11,000-square-foot private estate” and a “hospitality team.” The company leased the house for $75,000 a month, on a high-fire residential lane.
Sources: KFF / SAMHSA 2024 and Census (bed rate); MLS 25-3316 (lease); reported price. Details below.
Zoned RS-25, single-unit residential, inside the City’s High Fire Hazard Area. Source: City of Santa Barbara GIS record and MAPS viewer (search APN 015-202-009), as of Oct 25, 2026.
Rehab tourism
Casa Amara LLC is a California for-profit company. In November 2025 it leased this 7-bedroom house for $75,000 a month, or $900,000 a year. Its own words describe a destination business: a private estate, a hospitality team, and clients from other states and abroad. It has published no prices.
Who it markets to
Casa Amara’s company description in a physician job ad: “...whether our individuals are local, from another state, or abroad.”
Source: LinkedIn job ad, Addiction Medicine Physician, shown as posted “1 month ago” on Oct 25, 2026
What it sells
Its website calls the house “an 11,000-square-foot private estate” with “professionally designed interiors” and says the company is “assembling our founding clinical and hospitality team.” Its CEO’s launch post promised “Warm, calming, and luxurious interiors.”
Sources: casaamarahc.com, as of Oct 25, 2026 · Martha Fling, LinkedIn, Aug 16, 2026
The company
Federal NPI 1720901580 lists “CASA AMARA LLC” at 937 Cima Linda Lane as a “Community Based Residential Treatment Facility, Mental Illness,” with Martha Fling as CEO (enumerated July 30, 2026). An NPI doesn’t verify a license, and the record lists no state license number. The house was leased on Nov 17, 2025 (MLS 25-3316).
Sources: NPPES · Turpin Muller Group listing
Reported price
Casa Amara’s CEO has reportedly said fees would run about $100,000 per resident per month. Casa Amara hasn’t published its prices.
Fire and emergency access
The City maps this parcel in its High Fire Hazard Area, Foothill Zone. Cima Linda Lane measures 11½ feet wide at some points. The City’s fire code sets 20 feet for a fire apparatus access road. Neighbors ask where a fire engine could turn around.
See the City’s official fire-hazard maps ↗
Santa Barbara’s Fire Code generally requires a minimum unobstructed fire-access road width of 20 feet. The Fire Code Official may approve a reduction to 16 feet where the road serves three or fewer single-family residential units. Cima Linda Lane measures 11½ feet wide at some points.
Source: Santa Barbara Municipal Code § 8.04.020(H), Fire Code § 503.2.1 Dimensions, as of Oct 26, 2026.
City GIS places the parcel in the Foothill Zone of the High Fire Hazard Area. View the City’s record for the parcel ↗ Or open the City MAPS viewer, turn on Fire > High Fire Hazard Area, and search APN 015-202-009.
Cima Linda Lane measures 11½ feet wide at some points. The City’s fire code minimum for a fire apparatus access road is 20 feet, or 16 feet with approval. How does a fire engine get past a parked or oncoming car there?
Has the City recorded the driveway’s length, width and grade, and checked them against fire apparatus access standards?
Neighbors report no usable turnaround at the narrow end of the lane. Is there turning space that meets Fire Department requirements?
Our question for Santa Barbara Fire Prevention: has the City reviewed lane width, driveway length and grade, turning space, emergency access, evacuation, and the occupancy classification for the proposed use? Is there a written determination?
Write to the CityThe High Fire Hazard designation comes from City records. The Street View photos are Google captures. The driveway and turnaround points are neighbors’ questions, not official findings.
The public record
Every line here links to a public source you can check yourself. If a record changes, we’ll update this page and the date.
Zoning
City GIS shows the 3.07-acre parcel as RS-25 with no overlay zone. The County Assessor lists its use as “single family residence.” In RS zones, City code does not allow hospitals or clinics, and it requires a Performance Standard Permit for a community care facility with 7 to 15 residents.
Source: City GIS zoning record for the parcel · City MAPS viewer (search APN 015-202-009; Planning > Zoning layer) · Assessor parcel record · SBMC Table 30.20.020 · SBMC § 30.185.140
As of Oct 25, 2026
Fire
The parcel sits in the High Fire Hazard Area, Foothill Zone. Any change in how a property is used there should include a Fire Prevention review of occupancy and emergency access. See our access questions.
Source: City GIS fire-hazard record for the parcel · City MAPS viewer (search APN 015-202-009; Fire > High Fire Hazard Area layer)
As of Oct 25, 2026
City permits
The City’s building-permit records list 11 permits for this parcel, for work such as slope repair, walls, a pool spa, solar panels, and an accessory dwelling unit. None is for a change of use. The last application was opened in July 2020 and the last permit was issued in August 2020.
Source: City GIS building-permit records · City permit portal (Lookup Property Information, APN 015-202-009)
As of Oct 25, 2026
The house
The listing for MLS 25-3316 shows the house leased on November 17, 2025, at $75,000 per month. Casa Amara’s website calls it “an 11,000-square-foot private estate.” City permit BLD2017-01985 converted the guest house into a separate accessory dwelling unit.
Source: Turpin Muller Group listing · casaamarahc.com · City GIS building-permit records
As of Oct 25, 2026
The operator
The federal NPI registry lists Casa Amara LLC at 937 Cima Linda Lane as a “Community Based Residential Treatment Facility, Mental Illness,” enumerated July 30, 2026.
Source: NPPES record 1720901580
As of Oct 25, 2026
The 5-mile count
Within two miles of 937 Cima Linda Lane, the state has already licensed 4 residential treatment programs with 63 beds, including two side-by-side detox houses run by one operator on Glenview Road. Within five miles there are 13 licensed programs with 194 beds and at least 6 sober-living homes, which the state doesn’t license or count.1 That’s 19 residential recovery sites. Our neighborhood is already doing its share. Enough already.
How we counted. 132 licensed residential treatment beds at 7 sites in the City of Santa Barbara and Montecito (state treatment capacity, DHCS data of Sep 30, 2026), divided by 95,060 residents (City, 86,422, 2025 Census estimate; Montecito, 8,638, 2020 Census). That is 1.39 beds per 1,000. California has 0.28 and the U.S. 0.27: 11,195 and 91,214 residential beds in SAMHSA’s 2024 facility survey (via KFF), over 2024 Census population. The populations come from different years, the area follows city and community boundaries rather than the 5-mile ring, and this is not an audited census. The state list and the federal survey also differ in coverage and year, and local programs serve people from outside the area, so read this as an indicative comparison, not a like-for-like rate. Using KFF’s own population base gives 4.8× and 5.0×.
Licensed residential alcohol/drug treatment beds per 1,000 residents. Hospital inpatient beds, sober living, and mental-health beds are not included.
Countywide: 186 licensed residential treatment beds at 11 sites for 442,065 residents (2025 Census estimate) is 0.42 per 1,000, or 1.5× California. Treatment programs serve a region and tend to sit in cities, so the county rate is the fairer comparison, and it is still above the state. Many of these beds are run by local nonprofits or funded by the County; these numbers describe where capacity is sited, not who uses it.
All residential recovery spaces we have identified in the City and Montecito: 291, about 3.1 per 1,000. That adds the 97 men New House says it serves at any time and 62 state-licensed adult mental-health residential beds (CDSS) to the 132 treatment beds. It is a working inventory, not a census, and it can’t be compared with the state rates above.
Counts are cumulative and measured in a straight line. Sober living counts only homes whose operators publish their address.
| Ring | Licensed programs | Licensed beds | Sober living | Combined |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 mi | 3 | 18 | 0 | 3 |
| 2 mi | 4 | 63 | 0 | 4 |
| 5 mi | 13 | 194 | 6 | 19 |
● State-licensed alcohol/drug residential or detox (DHCS) · ■ State-licensed adult residential or social rehabilitation (CDSS) · ▲ Sober-living home, address published by its operator · Rings at 1, 2 and 5 miles. Download the map (PNG). Sober-living locations are shown at street level, not at the house. Map tiles load from the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Map, which receives visitors’ IP addresses (USGS privacy policy; see Privacy). If the tiles can’t load, the static map shows instead.
From the state’s own licensing lists. Beds are licensed capacity, not a daily count.
| Miles | Program | Operator | State license | Beds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.82 | Stillwater Behavioral Health (license 1 of 2) Glenview Rd pair: same operator, next door | Trinity Health Partners LLC | Alcohol/drug residential and detox (DHCS) | 6 |
| 0.85 | Stillwater Behavioral Health (license 2 of 2) Glenview Rd pair: same operator, next door | Trinity Health Partners LLC | Alcohol/drug residential and detox (DHCS) | 6 |
| 0.95 | Casa Juana Maria | Mental Health Association in Santa Barbara County | Adult residential / social rehab (CDSS) | 6 |
| 1.30 | Santa Barbara Rescue Mission Recovery Program | Santa Barbara Rescue Mission | Alcohol/drug residential (DHCS) | 45 |
| 2.13 | CG House (Cottage Grove) | Mental Health Association in Santa Barbara County | Adult residential / social rehab (CDSS) | 6 |
| 2.17 | Cottage Residential Center | Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital | Alcohol/drug residential (DHCS) | 24 |
| 2.45 | PathPoint Phoenix House | PathPoint | Adult residential / social rehab (CDSS) | 12 |
| 2.51 | Project Recovery Residential Detox | Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse | Alcohol/drug residential and detox (DHCS) | 12 |
| 2.61 | Bethel House | Santa Barbara Rescue Mission | Alcohol/drug residential (DHCS) | 24 |
| 2.75 | Casa Serena Residential Recovery | Casa Serena | Alcohol/drug residential and detox (DHCS) | 15 |
| 2.82 | Sanctuary Centers of Santa Barbara | Sanctuary Centers of Santa Barbara, Inc. | Adult residential / social rehab (CDSS) | 12 |
| 2.82 | PathPoint Mountain House | PathPoint | Adult residential / social rehab (CDSS) | 14 |
| 2.94 | Polly's House | Mental Health Association in Santa Barbara County | Adult residential / social rehab (CDSS) | 12 |
| Total | 194 |
California doesn’t license sober-living homes, so they don’t appear in the state’s counts. We list only homes whose operators publish the address, by operator and street.
We support recovery and mental-health care. The City Should Say No.
1 Counts only sober-living homes whose operators publish the address. Directory listings place 6 more within five miles that we have not confirmed; they are not counted or shown. Back to text
Our position
The question before the City of Santa Barbara is simple. Should a commercial medical treatment business operate out of a single-family home at 937 Cima Linda Lane? The answer is no.
937 Cima Linda Lane sits in the City’s High Fire Hazard Area. The City has already written down what that means:
“roads in the foothills are narrow, often steep and vulnerable to emergency conditions. Some of the older roadways are below current access standards and pose challenges to responding emergency vehicles, especially fire engines.”
Cima Linda Lane was laid out in 1956. At its narrowest point near 937, it measures 11½ feet. The City’s fire code requires 20. From the lane, a steep driveway drops to the house. The guest quarters sit lower still.
None of this can be renovated away. A fire engine will not get narrower. The hillside will not get flatter. Sundowner winds, which the City’s own findings put at 60 miles per hour or more, will not wait for a shift change.
Now consider who would be at the bottom of that driveway. Casa Amara has registered the house with the federal government as a “Community Based Residential Treatment Facility, Mental Illness.” It is recruiting a physician to provide “direct, on-site medical care,” including “monitoring withdrawal and detoxification.” The building code assumes that residents of a care home can save themselves in a fire. Picture a patient in detox at two in the morning, on sedating medication, as a sundowner drives flames down the canyon. In 1977 the Sycamore Fire burned to Five Points, where Eucalyptus Hill Road begins, and destroyed nearly 200 homes in about seven hours. In 2017 the Thomas Fire put this hill under evacuation orders. Who carries that patient up the driveway? How many patients will there be? How many staff will be on duty at night?
Follow the money. The owner listed this estate in 2025 for $23.5 million. It did not sell. Casa Amara was formed while the house sat on the market. It now markets “luxurious interiors” and a “panoramic view” to patients “from other states or from abroad.” The revenue goes to the operator and the owner. The neighbors get the traffic, the shift changes, the deliveries, the controlled medications and the risk. That is the bargain Casa Amara is offering this lane.
The City has one responsible choice.
Residential treatment matters. So do the lives of the patients, the staff, the neighbors and the firefighters who would depend on this site in the worst hour of a fire season. A business plan cannot change the width of a road. Neither can good intentions.
The City should refuse this operation. It should require a full determination of the actual use, every license and approval the law demands, and an independent assessment of fire access and evacuation. If the site cannot meet those standards, the operation should be prohibited. Santa Barbara’s residents are entitled to a government that acts before a tragedy, rather than one that explains afterward why it did not.
Casa Amara found a beautiful house and a lucrative opportunity. It has not shown that it found a safe and lawful place to operate.
The City should say no.
Take one minute
A short letter to the Planning Division asks the City to deny all permits and licenses for 937 Cima Linda Lane.
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Upcoming
The Commission meets Thursdays at 1:00 PM in the Council Chambers at City Hall, 735 Anacapa Street.
Casa Amara is not on any Planning Commission agenda yet. As of October 25, 2026, no posted agenda lists Casa Amara or 937 Cima Linda Lane, and the November agendas are not posted yet. If it is scheduled, we will post the date here.
Questions
No. People in recovery and people with mental health conditions are part of every neighborhood, and fair housing law protects them. Our objection is to this business at this address: a commercial treatment facility on a single-unit lot in the City’s High Fire Hazard Area.
No. The parcel is inside the City of Santa Barbara, in the Eucalyptus Hill neighborhood, so City Planning and City Fire are the agencies responsible. The 93108 mailing ZIP code causes the confusion.
California treats certain licensed alcohol and drug treatment facilities that serve six or fewer people as a residential use (Health & Safety Code § 11834.23). City code has a similar rule for community care facilities (SBMC § 30.185.140).
Not yet. As of October 25, 2026, no Planning Commission agenda lists Casa Amara or 937 Cima Linda Lane. A written comment to Planning now asks the City to deny all permits and licenses for this address.
It goes to the City’s Planning Division. Letters to the City can become public records, so write only what you’re comfortable seeing in a public file. Keep it short and about land use.
Neighbors on Cima Linda Lane in Santa Barbara. Write to us at {CONTACT}.
Sources
All checked on October 25, 2026.