Driving home from Irvine recently, I noticed how nice it was to leave the Ventura/Los Angeles county areas and head into Santa Barbara County and the open areas of the Central Coast. No wonder tourists like to come here! The squeeze of the shoulder-to-shoulder impact of homes, asphalt, and cars was lifted from my head as I watched the miles of open spaces with high mountains, rolling hills, cattle, grapevines, and other crops unfolding before my eyes. All of this grandeur as I got closer to home. We have a truly unique location that we all need to work together to preserve from the encroachment of leapfrog overdevelopment that has occurred in other counties along the coast.
The California Division of Land Resources Protection noted that statewide urban land expands by 93,000 acres every two years. Most counties within the state have lost between six and 11 acres of agricultural land per day to urban sprawl. Statewide prime farmland loss equals 74 square miles every two years. At this fast pace, will we have any agricultural land left for food production?
What protects open spaces and farmland from leapfrog development in Santa Barbara County? Our well established land-use rules help protect agriculture by insisting that urban uses stay within urban boundaries and discourage sprawl into rural areas. But a project that has received little notoriety in the Lompoc Valley has the potential of turning historic land-use rules protecting open spaces on their heads and will open the floodgates to leapfrog development into agricultural lands in Santa Barbara County.
The Kenneth Hunter-La Purisima Resort is being proposed adjacent to the La Purisima Golf Course owned by Mr. Hunter. It will include an 80-room hotel, restaurant-spa, and 85 residential units, all on agricultural land far from any urban center. It’s a total of 235,000 square feet. The golf course was originally allowed on agricultural land because its activities seemed compatible, but does this expansion?
The county staff’s report does not support this project, but three plannning commissioners seem to be on the verge of overturning county policies and rewriting established county zoning ordinances to allow the project on agricultural lands. County staff concluded that it’s inconsistent with fundamental tenets of the County Land Use Element, that it would create a path for approval of resorts that would be inconsistent with the Agricultural Element, that it would encourage property owners to non-renew their agricultural preserve contracts to pursue development, that it would substantially disrupt rural land use patterns and disrupt existing agricultural operations. They recommend that the Planning Commission deny the request.
One need only look to neighboring counties to see the importance of this one decision to be made by the commissioners. In these counties, you see leapfrog developments around golf courses, which are far from existing urban boundaries, and are the centerpiece of extensive, high-priced homes with housing tract after housing tract spiraling out from the center. After you approve one, what is the rationale to not approve the next and the next? The end result is that we no longer have urban boundaries.
It is this one looming decision on Kenneth Hunter’s project that is so critical to Santa Barbara County’s future. Will we go the way of Ventura and Los Angeles counties, or will we remain an exception to trends and remain a rural county with pristine open spaces that attract tourists, allow us to grow a large variety of crops—including grapes—and raise cattle?
It is your quality of life that is at stake at the meeting set for Feb. 11 at 9 a.m. in the hearing room at the Betteravia Government Center in Santa Maria. Try to attend, call 568-2058, or send a letter to the planning department at 105 East Anapamu St. Santa Barbara, encouraging the commissioners to stand firm and deny this project. m
Ken McCalip is an North Santa Barbara County native who holds bachelor and doctorate degrees in history, cultural geography, and law from various California universities. Contact him at foxmt.one@verizon.net.
This article appears in Jan 29 – Feb 5, 2009.