Study on Gaviota coast can proceed

Courts: Judge throws out request from landowners

12/27/01 By MELINDA BURNS
NEWS-PRESS SENIOR WRITER

A federal judge this month rejected a request by a group of landowners who sought the immediate suspension of a National Park Service study of the Gaviota coast. In a Dec. 10 ruling in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Judge David Carter said the landowners had failed to show how they would be irreparably harmed if the study of the coast from Coal Oil Point to Point Sal was allowed to continue. "The Court is left to conjecture that Plaintiffs may claim that, if the Gaviota Coast is eventually designated as a National Seashore, then their property might be either taken or reduced in value," Judge Carter wrote. "That injury is far from imminent."

Many bureaucratic hurdles remain between the completion of the study and a decision by Congress on a potential national seashore status for the scenic coast, the judge stated. "Such tenuous possibilities, likely to be effected by politics, are too conjectural to afford standing," he wrote. Judge Carter's ruling allows the study to proceed while the case continues. A draft for public review is expected to be ready in the spring. The property owners who are suing the Park Service include William Giorgi, Henry Schulte, LeRoy Scolari, Larry Stableford, Ken Doty, Paul Brinkman and Bruce Brown; and several Hollister Ranch property owners. They contend that the Park Service should have notified them before drawing the boundaries of the study area; and they allege that the study lowers their property values. "We're disappointed, of course, at the ruling, but the case will continue on," said David James, a property owner on the Gaviota coast and chairman of the Forest Preservation Society of Southern California, a Glendale-based group that monitors federal land management practices in the region. "We intend to pursue this case to trial."

The Gaviota coast is one of the last remaining undeveloped stretches of coastline in California. It includes several state parks, Vandenberg Air Force Base, national forest and many old ranching properties. Since March 2000, the Park Service has been studying 75 miles along the coast from the mountaintops to the shores, to determine whether the area should be included in the national park system. Possible designations may include a national seashore, national historical area or national monument. Mike Lunsford, president of the Gaviota Coast Conservancy, a nonprofit group, said the Park Service study would document the valuable resources of the area and lay out ways to protect them from development. "This lawsuit is evidence of the landowners' willingness to put their personal interests above the public's interest," Mr. Lunsford said. "We would expect them to participate in the community process to articulate their concerns."