Gaviota coast's developers offer preserves for more homes

Article taken from the Santa Barbara News Press
Published with permission

Gaviota coast's developers offer preserves for more homes

Environmentalists fear piecemeal proposals, question suitability of land

By MELINDA BURNS
NEWS-PRESS SENIOR WRITER

01/09/05

The owner of Bacara has joined a new trend on the Gaviota coast in which landowners hoping to win over their opponents propose a swap, putting land in preserves in exchange for development rights.

Alvin Dworman, the owner and builder of Bacara Resort & Spa, wants to increase the development potential on his 1,047-acre property on the opposite side of Highway 101 from about 15 to 24 lots for homes, scattered on both sides of Tecolote Creek and the Embarcadero housing tract.

In return, Mr. Dworman would set aside 984 acres in agricultural and natural preserves, or about 94 percent of the property, to be owned and managed by the 24 future homeowners. In a preliminary proposal now under county review, he calls his project the "Tecolote Preserve."

"Think about how little development this is," said John Davies, a local consultant for Mr. Dworman. "It sets an incredible example of what you can do. Alvin fell in love with the ranch and wants to lock it down. He wants to make sure that it's preserved forever and continues to be economically viable."


	As part of the Tecolote Preserve project, several lots for homes would be created on this hillside with a view of the Francisco Torres apartment buldings at UCSB, and Anacapa Island. The avocado and lemon operation on the ranch would continue with no net loss of land.

Mr. Dworman is not the first landowner on the rural coast to propose protections for agricultural and scenic land in return for development benefits. Chuck Blitz and Roger Himovitz successfully used that strategy at the El Capitan and Dos Vistas ranches several years ago. Matt Osgood and Henry Schulte are trying it now in connection with a project for 54 homes at Naples and 16 lots for homes at Dos Pueblos Ranch.

But some environmentalists have expressed alarm at what they say are piecemeal proposals that could forever change the character of the Gaviota coast, a historic farming and ranching region.

Until last year, groups such as the Sierra Club and Surfrider Foundation had been supporting a national seashore or other national park designation for the coast from Coal Oil Point to Point Sal. The proposal which might have provided federal funding to buy land and development rights, was squelched by the Bush administration at the request of the landowners, although the National Park Service concluded that the Gaviota coast was a "nationally significant" resource worth saving from urbanization.


At left, a proposed natural preserve would protect the canyon in the steep foothills of the Santa Ynez Mountains, shown here in the distance. Tecolote Creek, far left, provides a lush habitat for animals big and small.

Ariana Katovich, a local Sierra Club organizer, worries that the trade-offs being offered now will merely expand development opportunities with no real preservation gain. The proposed set-asides, far from being "gifts" from the landowners, may be on land that is too steep or environmentally sensitive to build on in the first place, Ms. Katovich said.

"A preserve is like a buzzword now in the development community," she said. "Perhaps they think it makes their projects more digestible to the public. But we're not going to be taken advantage of."

Mr. Dworman's new project represents the kind of "in-fill" housing that some environmentalists fear might be built between Naples and Goleta, moving the urban boundary westward towards Gaviota, Ms. Katovich said.

"This is a very large project," she said. "It's going to have an impact."

Bob Keats of the Surfrider Foundation said environmentalists have been asking the county for the past 12 years to prepare a comprehensive plan for the coast, identifying which properties are appropriate for housing and which have sensitive resources that should be protected.


	Bacara's owner is proposing to set aside most of this ranch as preserves in return for the right to create 24 lots for homes. At right, ranch manager John Hunt walks through an organic garden that supplies the hotel chefs with herbs.

"It would help the landowners to know where they stand," Mr. Keats said.

But county officials say they do not wish to embroil the community in another disputed plan like the one for a national park, which turned many public meetings into boisterous free-for-alls. Landowners and environmentalists, officials said, will have to hash out a plan on their own.

"I don't want to have a big-bang process that pits everybody against everybody and gives us another three years of controversy," said Valentin Alexeeff, director of county planning and development. "We're not up for it."

The county already faces a spate of lawsuits filed by the owners of the Naples, Dos Pueblos, Parsons, Doheny and Tajiguas ranches over their right to build on the Gaviota coast. County planners, Mr. Alexeeff said, have an obligation to "play ball" and consider each new proposal as it comes up.

"We're taking this one step at a time," he said.

The Tecolote Preserve is a project of Wallover LLC, a New York City-based company headed by Mr. Dworman. The preliminary plans await feedback from county planners at a private meeting later this month. Mr. Dworman has already dropped a proposal for a winery as a result of ongoing discussions. After this month's meeting, he is expected to further modify his project and submit a formal application for county review.

Mr. Dworman's 1,047 undeveloped acres lie outside the boundaries of the city of Goleta and its unincorporated urban fringe, but inside the rural area of the county's community plan for unincorporated Goleta. The property skirts both sides of Tecolote Creek and Rancho Embarcadero and stretches a finger into the foothills of Los Padres National Forest.

Mr. Dworman bought the land in 1968 and resuscitated a failing agricultural operation. The ranch today produces up to 3 million pounds of avocados and 2 million pounds of lemons yearly. An organic garden supplies Bacara with fresh vegetables, including eight kinds of tomatoes and 12 kinds of lettuce. The hotel chefs themselves come to pick their own Chanterelle mushrooms and herbs.

As part of his new project, Mr. Dworman is offering to set aside 428 acres in an agricultural preserve. He would develop an equestrian center for the future homeowners. In addition, he would designate 556 acres as a "natural wild preserve" in the steep foothills bounded by Los Padres. This area would be open to private hiking and riding.

The property provides a wealth of habitat for bobcats, coyotes, bears, mountain lions, golden eagles and the owls that gave Tecolote Creek its name. During the county's review of Bacara, California red-legged frogs, a threatened species, and the tidewater goby, an endangered species of fish, were found in the mouth of the creek.

The land is divided into 15 parcels which may or may not translate into 15 legal lots, county officials said. In any case, Mr. Dworman is requesting a total of 24 lots for homes, all of them two and three acres. These lots would be scattered along the ridgelines on the lower half of the property, more than 100 feet away from the creek. Access to the new homes would be along Farren Road and existing ranch roads off Vereda Pradera, Vereda del Ciervo and Vereda Leyenda.

The future lots -- to be developed by individual buyers and not by Mr. Dworman -- would be called "trustee hacienda sites."

That is, each homeowner would be an owner and a steward of the preserve. A vote of all 24 homeowners could terminate the protections for this land, but such a vote would be unlikely, Mr. Davies said.

"They're not going to want to develop it because they're paying a lot of money to have this rural lifestyle within an urban area," he said.

Mr. Dworman has already met with his neighbors in the Embarcadero subdivision, a development of 160 homes on one-acre lots. Gay Milligan, a local Realtor, said residents there were generally supportive of Mr. Dworman's plans.

"The question has been asked over and over again, 'What's going to happen to the land around the canyon?' " Ms. Milligan said. "The fear is that it would be divided up into one-acre parcels. This looks like it's going to be very low-profile."

MIKE ELIASON / NEWS-PRESS PHOTOS