Article taken from the Santa
Barbara News Press Ranchers seek new EIR process By
MELINDA BURNS 01/19/05 Spokesmen for the North County farming and ranching community lobbied a sympathetic Board of Supervisors on Tuesday for broad changes in the way the county conducts its environmental review of development projects. Willy Chamberlin, a Santa Ynez Valley rancher; Lanny Stableford, a Gaviota coast rancher; and Andy Caldwell, spokesman for the nonprofit Coalition of Labor, Agriculture and Business, said the county should allow developers to manage their own environmental impact reports. Presently, developers choose a consulting firm, and county Planning and Development employees supervise the preparation of the reports. Later on, the reports are released to the public and hearings are held. Environmental review of proposed development is the linchpin of California's protections for wetlands, wildlife, beaches and creeks. But in Santa Barbara County, the farmers said, the reports too often were unfriendly to ranchers, lopsided in their conclusions and unfairly expensive. They asked Planning and Development officials to expand their list of qualified consulting firms. They also objected to the fact that some former county planners work for these companies. "There's something wrong with the culture of the department," Mr. Caldwell said. "The department exercises too much control. We need to loosen up that control." Mr. Chamberlin said: "We're always fighting. The Planning Department has a very limited knowledge of what goes on in a project, particularly in agriculture." Dianne Meester, assistant director of county Planning and Development, said that about two-thirds of the counties in California choose to oversee the preparation of environmental reports, rather than turn the job over to developers, because it ultimately saves developers time and money. Either way, Ms. Meester said, the board ultimately has to sign off on the contents and conclusions of these reports. "In the end, the supervisors have to make the determination that the document is adequate and reflects their independent judgment," Ms. Meester said. "They can't just give up their authority under the law to a private developer." Ms. Meester also said it would be hard to find a consulting firm in the entire state of California that did not employ former employees of Santa Barbara County Planning and Development. For the Naples project, a proposal for 54 homes on land zoned for agriculture on the Gaviota coast, the county sent out requests for proposals to nine firms and received only two applications back, Ms. Meester said. Both employed former county planners. At the suggestion of North County Supervisor Joe Centeno, the board unanimously agreed that the Planning Commission should investigate how the county conducts its environmental reviews. "The process we're currently using with respect to environmental review is not getting done for us in terms of how the ranching and farming community would like to see it," Mr. Centeno said. Also on Tuesday, the board approved a developer's choice of the URS Corp., a Goleta consulting firm, to prepare an $858,000 environmental report on Naples. Among other things, the company is required to study the possibility of transferring development rights from Naples to other locations in the county. Mr. Centeno questioned whether it was worthwhile to study these transfers, given the high cost of land at Naples, a scenic property that spans both sides of Highway 101. "This might be an exercise in futility from an economic point of view," he said. "Why do we need to go down this road?" Alan Seltzer, a deputy county counsel, reminded the supervisors that it has been the direction of the board to date not to encourage the urbanization of agricultural land on the Gaviota coast. Naples is a unique case, he said, because the property has 233 legal lots, and that is why the county's local coastal plan, as approved by the state Coastal Commission, requires a study of the transfer of development rights at Naples.
e-mail: mburns@newspress.com
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