County sued over Naples

By COLBY FRAZIER

Minutes before the deadline, a consortium of local environmental organizations filed a lawsuit in Superior Court yesterday against the County of Santa Barbara, alleging the county made widespread errors when it approved a 71-home development at Naples.

The area of the proposed development has been the topic of decades of dispute, primarily because of its proximity to the pristine Gaviota Coast.

With a 3-2 vote, the Board of Supervisors approved the development project on Oct. 21.

Groups like the Naples Coalition, Environmental Defense Center and Surfrider Foundation, which filed the lawsuit, believe the project is nothing short of catastrophic for the environmentally sensitive area and could open the door to development up and down the coastline.

But beyond the impassioned views of how valuable Naples is to the ecosystem and view shed, the lawsuit says the county erred on a number of fronts during the approval process.

“Our goal in this lawsuit is very simple,” said Phil McKenna, president of the Naples Coalition. “It is to require that the county simply adhere to state law as it exists, and their own regulations. If they do that they will reach the right decision to protect the Gaviota Coast and Naples.”

Nathan Alley, an attorney for the Environmental Defense Center, said the 39-page lawsuit hinges on four primary points.

The first alleges the county violated the California Environmental Quality Act several times by relying on improper assumptions in the environmental impact report prepared for the project.

Because the project, known as Santa Barbara Ranch, changed several times over the past decade, the lawsuit alleges the originally prepared EIR didn’t reflect those changes when the board made its decision.

For example, the approved project apparently calls for 480,000 cubic yards of cut and fill, up from 117,000 in an earlier project.

The lawsuit also alleges the EIR didn’t acknowledge impacts to watershed, the affect sewage and other infrastructure improvements will have on the area and by failing to avoid or mitigate such environmental impacts.

The lawsuit accuses the county of failing to adequately consider feasible mitigation measures that would avoid or substantially lessen impacts. According to the lawsuit, the public identified several feasible alternatives and mitigation measures that would have accomplished this.

Another alleged deficiency outlined in the lawsuit deals with the California Coastal Act and the county’s own Local Coastal Plan (LCP).

The lawsuit says the county erred when it approved an amendment to its LCP that violated the Coastal Act. The gist of the violation, according the lawsuit, deals with the county allowing new residential development outside of existing developed areas.

This LCP amendment apparently already ran into difficulty with the California Coastal Commission. The commission informed the county in late October that its informational filing on the project was deficient because it based some of its findings on the amended LCP. Marc Chytilo, an attorney for the Naples Coalition, said this is a problem because before the county is able to base anything on the amended LCP, the Coastal Commission must approve it.

Chytilo also said the county violated the Williamson Act, a state law that gives owners of large parcels of agricultural land tax breaks in exchange for leaving the land undeveloped.

The lawsuit says the 2,566-acre Dos Pueblos Ranch, which sits directly next to the 485-acre Santa Barbara Ranch, is currently under a Williamson Act contract, and the county didn’t take the appropriate steps to remove it. Several of the proposed homes would also be built at Dos Pueblos Ranch.

Chytilo said canceling a Williamson Act contract to make way for the Naples development sets a dangerous precedent for what he called one of the most important protections of agriculture land that the county and state has.

Twenty-one of the proposed 71 homes, some of which near 10,000 square feet, would be located in the coastal zone and are subject to Coastal Commission approval.

Days before the board voted to approve the project, it voted 3-2 in closed session to split the project into two chunks, one coastal and the other inland.

Project opponents insist this act by the board ensured the inland portion could be completed without as much scrutiny as its counterpart. And opponents insist there should not be a distinction because the two since both would rely on the same infrastructure.

The Naples development is unique in that it was divided into 213 legal lots more than a century ago.

Santa Barbara Ranch owner Matt Osgood said if the county hadn’t approved his project, he’d have sold it off piecemeal, lot-by-lot. Or another alternative, he’s said, would be to develop by the grid, which he has said would be “devastating” to the coast.

However, Chytilo said if Osgood chose to sell off individual lots, the project would probably result in less density than is currently proposed.

While the fate of Naples has taken recent turns in favor of development, the project will be on pause for about a year, the time Chytilo said the lawsuit and a pending appeal to the California Coastal Commission will take to be resolved.

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Gaviota Coast : 11/21/2008

The Gaviota Coast is more than a magnificent parcel of land for the privileged to argue and hold domininon over. There are fundamental ideas that have to be challenged. There are new realities that override staid notions and worn-out credos of individual rights and entrepreneurial ambitiousness. In this day and age, it has to be more apparent than ever that the ways of excess, greed and selfish indulgence among individual landowners has to come to an end if our society and culture is to survive. If there IS to be any development on the Gaviota Coast, it is obvious that it should be thoughtful and moderate at best. Mr. Osgood and his caste remind us of the executives in Detroit who insist on building products they "think" we should want instead of adapting to the age and building what is needed and useful for the greater all (which is why Detroit is now sitting in front of Congress with hat in hand). As an example of one suggestion, the maximum size of the dwellings could be held at 2500 square feet and include "living garden" areas both individual and shared. The structures could be designed "green" and be unobtrusive in a manner similar to Sea Ranch in northern California. These are just some possible suggestions of many. If there is to be a leadership role by representatives of government (who in theory represent us ALL), they should take the initiative in advancing systems for living our lives at a human scale and consuming in a thoughtful and sustainable fashion (this would benefit us all). Going forward, there is no more time or place to indulge excess and frivolous luxuries for some at the expense of others. This goes to the very heart of people/communities living together harmoniously as one for all and all for one. It is understood there are individual rights issues that collide with these ideas, yet again, if someone wants to live well with others they need to consider the rights and needs of neighbors (hopefully willfully and voluntarily, but if not… ). Resources are limited and they need to be shared by us all. When it comes to the natural environment and resources in general, disposition should not be deemed simply by affluence or assertion of entitlement of the few over many.

Michael Schubach

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SBR : 11/23/2008

More crying over the right to develop personal property that has over 200 legal lots. It shows how intelligent Chytilo is. He figures 125-150 buildable lots is lees then 71. WOW. If was their land, you can bet every buildable lot would have been fought for. In addition, Chytilo needs to stop trespassing. He might fall down and go boom and get an owey.

rennergizer

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