Article taken from the Santa
Barbara News Press County close to joining
land deal By
MORGAN GREEN 10/20/04 After two years of huddling with UCSB and Goleta, the county is on the brink of committing to an ambitious partnership to create one of Southern California's biggest seaside nature preserves and clear the way for nearly 450 new homes. On Oct. 26, the county Board of Supervisors will consider a plan to establish and manage the 652-acre Ellwood-Devereux Open Space. The board, which discussed the deal Tuesday, also delayed for a week its scrutiny of a related housing development on the edge of the natural area, the 58-unit Ocean Meadows Residences. Approval of both means the county would catch up to UCSB and Goleta leaders who already approved their commitments to the partnership, along with two related housing developments in their jurisdictions. If the supervisors sign off, the California Coastal Commission will have the final word when it considers the deal this winter. Assistant Planning Director Dianne Meester cautioned the supervisors against delay and stressed the importance of a united front. She wants the commission to have the county's approval in hand "for the whole context of this." The agencies' collective goal -- and a long-standing dream by local environmental groups -- is to preserve the land that extends along the Ellwood coast for two miles and includes areas governed by each. The scenic area between the university and Sandpiper Golf Course features seaside bluffs; grass meadows; eucalyptus groves where monarch butterflies gather; dunes where threatened Western snowy plovers nest; a popular surfing beach; and protected wetlands including Devereux Slough. Much of the area has been used as a makeshift park by hikers, birdwatchers, picnickers, artists, joggers and horseback riders. The area would officially and permanently be preserved as open space as part of the three-way Ellwood-Devereux deal. The preserve is created by shifting long-planned housing developments from the fragile coast inland to land near existing neighborhoods. The supervisors on Tuesday considered the Ocean Meadows project as part of the complex deal. In trade for housing on 6.5 acres of Ocean Meadows Golf Course, the rest of the course would accept recreational zoning to bar further development. Two area residents complained to the supervisors about the mass and scale of the housing development. For the next hearing, the supervisors asked for more information on the effect of three-story buildings on neighbors, as well as other issues such as flood control and ways to ensure wildlife can still travel across the area. Under the partnership, the county, UCSB and the city of Goleta would jointly manage the natural area and provide $3 million in facilities such as trails, perimeter parking lots, bathrooms, benches, beach stairways and wetland crossings. In August, the Goleta City Council sent its commitment to the management plan and its OK of a related 62-unit luxury housing development to the Coastal Commission. The housing was moved from a seaside site to part of nearby Santa Barbara Shores City Park. In trade, the city will get the developer's former 136-acre site for part of the natural area after the Trust for Public Land buys it from the developer. The trust is still short $1 million of the $20 million price, but "everybody feels at this point it can't get away from us," Goleta Councilwoman Margaret Connell said. "We're feeling like we're very much on track to getting this thing done." UCSB aims to finish its preparations for the Coastal Commission's consideration by early November, a campus planner said. That entails requesting that the commission amend the university's Long Range Development Plan for shifting housing to accommodate the nature area. In September, UCSB got approval from the UC regents to build 236 units of faculty housing and 151 units of student family housing on the north and east flanks of Ocean Meadows Golf Course. Formerly, university plans showed the housing closer to the sea. The former site will become part of the natural open-space area.
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