Residents in the Santa Maria Valley may have more local places to hike if Santa Barbara County moves forward with purchasing two pieces of property in Orcutt.
During a county Planning Commission meeting on June 24, the commissioners unanimously determined that acquiring the two parcels—one directly south of Orcutt Hills Open Space and the other along Highway 101—for recreational use is consistent with the county’s land use code.
The commission’s action doesn’t mean the parcels have been acquired, county planner Delaney Roney said. The Board of Supervisors will ultimately make that decision at a future meeting.
According to a staff report for the commission meeting, acquiring the parcels would be funded through $3 million the county received from Shell Exploration & Production Inc. as part of the Guadalupe Dunes Restoration Project. This project is aimed at mitigating damage to natural resources caused by oil operations in the dunes.
“The agreement specified that the funds were to be used for the enhancement of public recreation in the north coastal region of Santa Barbara County,” the staff report states. “The proposed acquisition(s) would serve the purpose of providing open space and recreational uses (hiking trails) for public use in the county of Santa Barbara.”
News of this potential acquisition was a welcome surprise to Dan Ardoin, who serves as the director of trail maintenance for Santa Maria Valley Open Space, which is the nonprofit that maintains the trails at Orcutt Hills.
“This is good news,” Ardoin said. “Anytime they buy open space for the community is awesome.”
Acquiring the two parcels would open up a combined 176 acres of open space for the county. Ardoin said this space is needed as there are only a few trails in Orcutt and they are over used. The Orcutt Community Plan states that the unincorporated community should have 40 miles of designated trails open to the public, but currently there’s only about 8 miles.
The amount of open space that exists will eventually be reduced as the developer behind the Rice Ranch master-planned community builds homes on Orcutt Hills that have been planned for years. This development won’t affect the open space’s designated trails, but it’ll remove about 20 miles worth of makeshift “social trails” that people have created on their own, Ardoin said.
“We have a few trails that are way over used, and it’s obvious we need more open space,” Ardoin said. “So this [potential acquisition] is good. This is the solution we needed all along.”
This article appears in Jul 2-9, 2020.
