Article
taken from the Santa Barbara News
Press Goleta gives green light to land swap
10/23/02
NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER The Goleta City Council unanimously approved an agreement Monday laying out the mechanics of a swap of city park land to a housing developer for environmentally sensitive acreage on Ellwood mesa. The agreement, a memorandum of understanding, signals the city's commitment to the swap and is expected to trigger the participation by the Trust for Public Land, a private nonprofit agency. The trust is to be a neutral middleman in the deal. The trust plans to raise money and buy the developer's scenic 137-acre Ellwood mesa property, including the famous Ellwood monarch butterfly groves, and later turn it over to the city for a park. The developer is to get up to 36 acres nearby in the city's Santa Barbara Shores Park on which to build up to 78 homes. The Trust for Public Land on Tuesday named Carla Frisk to lead the trust's swap activities here. Ms. Frisk has worked for 20 years as an aide to Sen. Jack O'Connell, D-San Luis Obispo. She helped orchestrate major public land acquisition projects in the county, including the Sedgewick Ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley, Carpinteria Marsh and Bluffs, Santa Barbara's Douglas Family Preserve and the Arroyo Hondo and El Capitan ranches on the Gaviota coast. According to time estimates in the city's nonbinding agreement, the swap would not be consummated until at least 2005.
|