Article taken from the
Santa Barbara News Press
Published with permission
Golf course plans go back to Coastal Commission
Committee's staff advises denial of Gaviota coast project
By MORGAN
GREEN
NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
12-11-02
Plans for a pair of golf courses on 208 acres of the Gaviota coast return to the state Coastal Commission today at its meeting in San Francisco.
The commission's staff recommends denial of the ARCO Dos Pueblos Golf Links because during years of legal challenges to the proposal, numerous previously unknown endangered and sensitive species have been found on the property.
Earlier in the day, the commission is expected to elect a leader, part of a power struggle dividing commissioners between longtime chairwoman Sara Wan, a Malibu biologist beloved by environmentalists, and Dave Potter, a Monterey county supervisor backed by critics of Ms. Wan.
Pedro Nava, one of two commissioners from Santa Barbara and an ally of Ms. Wan's, said Tuesday a vote against the chairwoman would indicate the commission has a voting bloc "willing to go beyond reasonable compromise" of coastal protections.
Commissioner Gregg Hart, who also serves on the Santa Barbara City Council, could not be reached for comment.
The Dos Pueblos plan calls for 18-hole and nine-hole courses, a clubhouse and support facilities south of Highway 101 about 11/2 miles west of Goleta.
Local interest in the links has been intense.
The commission has received inch-high stacks of letters and postcards for and against, many from South Coast residents.
Mr. Nava declined to indicate how he would vote on the links, but added the staff's report is strong and solid.
The links plan was approved by the county Board of Supervisors and the commission in 1994. It survived a court challenge and an appeal by the Surfrider Foundation, a nonprofit conservation group.
But it stalled in 1999 when the California red-legged frog was discovered in Eagle Canyon next to the proposed nine-hole course. The species is endangered and federally protected.
Research has also turned up endangered tidewater gobies and patches of rare southern tarplant.
Thousands of monarch butterflies roost on the property in winter and two pair of white-tailed kites, a federally protected species, are nesting there.
Without a substantial redesign, the golf courses would have significant, impermissible and potentially irreversible affects on those species, according to the commission staff report.
Whitt Hollis, the project manager, said if he undertook revisions recommended by the commission's staff, "There wouldn't be enough land left to build anything."
He said the commission requested in 1999 that Dos Pueblos Associates produce conservation measures for the red-legged frogs in Eagle Creek Canyon, and that was done.
"And now the commission staff is attempting to say that on top of the frog, there's the kite and the tarplant, and yada, yada, yada. . . .
They're saying, 'We're changing the rules again,' '' he said.
"But we're hopeful the commissioners understand the legal position we hold and the equity position we hold," he said.
In June, Mr. Hollis said if the golf course isn't built, he'll build housing on part of the property.
Bob Keats, a spokesman for the Surfrider Foundation, said Tuesday, "We'd like them to sell the land to an organization like the Trust for Public Land. We know the trust is interested in the Gaviota coast."
The site is zoned for agriculture, which includes golf courses under county rules. About half of the site was an oil and gas field until the facilities were removed in 1998. The rest was farmed or grazed over the years.
If the Dos Pueblos Golf Links project proceeds, it would be the first development in recent years west of the county's urban development boundary line, which also marks Goleta's western city limits.
