Article taken from the Ventura County Star A ripe target for sprawl By John Krist 06/17/04 Given its proximity to some of the most coveted urban real estate on the planet, the landscape along the coast west of Santa Barbara and Goleta is remarkably undeveloped. In the hope of keeping it that way, conservationists have long urged that the Gaviota region be accorded formal protection as a national seashore. They almost got their wish. This spring, however, the federal government dashed their hopes by issuing a report concluding that such protection was warranted but "not feasible." The finding stands in stark contrast to the expansionary tendencies of the National Park Service during the Clinton administration. It also illustrates the growing influence of property-rights activists in the conservation arena now that legislators sympathetic to their cause control the White House and both chambers of Congress. Responding to requests from local conservationists and lawmakers, Congress directed the National Park Service in 1999 to evaluate whether all or part of the Gaviota area might qualify for inclusion in the national park system. The study began in January 2000, focusing on a 76-mile stretch of coast between Coal Oil Point at UC Santa Barbara and Point Sal near the northern boundary of Vandenberg Air Force Base. The study area encompassed about 215,000 acres, 41 percent of it privately owned, 46 percent inside Vandenberg, and the remaining 13 percent a mix of federal, state and county ownership. The study process over the next two years involved meetings with local agencies, input from experts and a series of public forums. Reviewers quickly learned that the region possesses a remarkable suite of attributes. According to the final NPS report, the study area "is part of one of the rarest global biomes ... It is one of only five such locations in the world (and) is the only location in the nation that features an ecological transition zone between northern and southern Mediterranean plant communities." Additionally, the report noted, the Gaviota area "is Southern California's largest continuous stretch of rural coastal land and its healthiest remaining coastal ecosystem. Although the coastal area between Coal Oil Point and Point Sal comprises only 15 percent of Southern California's coast, it includes approximately 50 percent of its remaining rural coastline." Given these attributes of the region, plus the presence of rare habitat types and more than 1,400 species of plants and animals, the report's preliminary conclusion was not surprising: "The natural and cultural resources of the area are nationally significant," the review found, "meeting all four of the NPS criteria for national significance. The area is suitable for inclusion in the national park system, as it represents natural and cultural resource types that are not already adequately represented in the system or protected by another land managing entity." But the next paragraph dismayed advocates of federal protection for the Gaviota region: "The area is not a feasible addition to the national park system because sufficient land is not currently available to the NPS; strong opposition from study area landowners makes it unlikely that effective NPS management could occur; and the NPS is not able to undertake new management responsibilities of this cost and magnitude, given current national financial priorities." That's the conclusion forwarded in March to the secretary of interior. Of those explanations, it was perhaps the one tucked in the middle that proved key. Although some local property owners supported the idea of a national seashore designation, others were livid, believing it an effort to seize their land, and they drew noisy support from anti-government and property-rights activists from around the country. In the past, those concerns might have been accommodated through compromise, as was the case when Point Reyes National Seashore was established. But the Bush administration appears as uninterested in advancing the Park Service mission as it is in courting conservative ire. To members of the Gaviota Coast Conservancy, formed in 1996 to push for protection of the area, fears of a land grab were exaggerated. The greater threat, they argued, was that those same landowners would eventually try to cash in on the development potential of their coastal property."From the Coal Oil Point Reserve to El Capitan, conditions for classic urban sprawl are ripe," the organization notes on its Web site. "The population growth on the South Coast, the steady increase in land values on our beautiful coastline, and the arrival of state water in Santa Barbara County all contribute to the threatening spread of urban sprawl." |