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Yahoo!Although the issues still aren’t clear to many, the Goleta City Council voted on Tuesday night to initiate study of several of the amendments to Goleta’s General Plan proposed by Bacara Spa & Resort. The major issues under scrutiny were beach access location, beach access hours, tsunami planning, and the designation of environmentally sensitive habitat areas (ESHA) on Bacara’s property.
Steve Chase, Goleta’s Director of Planning and Environmental Services, presented the city staff’s recommendations to the Council, including further examination of the general plan amendments to determine feasibility. One exception, though, was for some language related to beach access. Currently, Bacara wishes to build 62 timeshare condominiums where the public access to and parking for Haskell’s Beach are currently located, moving that access to another location on the property. Chase pointed out that as the amendment is currently worded — “without unreasonably diminishing public access” — there may be some leeway pertaining specifically to the word “unreasonably,” so the council voted unanimously to remove the word from the proposed amendment.
Paul Wellman
The trail leading down to the beach near Bacara. The focus of many county coastal access debates, this beach's availability to the public is being negotiated by the resort and the Coastal Commission.
Another aspect of the access issue that was touched upon was the hours the beach access and parking lot are open. Sandy Lejeune, a member of the Executive Committee of the Santa Barbara chapter of the Surfrider Foundation and a regular visitor to Haskell’s Beach, has been following the debate for a while, and is concerned that Bacara is attempting to privatize the beach there. “The general plan amendments include changes in language that make it possible to limit access hours,” he said. “I think they’d like to move the public access much farther away from where the whole complex is.” Richard Monk, an attorney representing HTSB, Inc. — which owns Bacara — countered these concerns by saying that the new access would be a shorter walk to the beach, but noted that the current 24-7 access hours pose security problems. David Brown, Bacara’s Director of Safety and Security, said that nighttime instances of underage drinking and graffiti are increasing in frequency.
Neither Bacara nor its detractors have been able to convince the other side of the validity of their stance on ESHAs, and currently, appear to be working at cross purposes. Environmentalists and other community members argue that mitigation of the environmental impacts caused by past development — in the form of vegetation and habitat restoration — was a part of Bacara’s initial permit application, and must be maintained. The proposed condos are reportedly to be placed in the middle of this restoration area, so members of the environmental community do not want to see it destroyed. Monk explained their position to the Council, saying that because the restoration areas were not naturally occurring, they do not constitute an ESHA. He also said that the second, or completion phase of their development plan, was already approved. “Denial of initiation [of general plan amendments] dooms Bacara to remain a partially completed resort,” he said. “This [completion] would be a great economic benefit in these difficult times.”
Margaret Connell
The parking lot at the Bacara near Haskell's Beach.
Public comment was lively at the meeting, but pro-Bacara speakers were notably better represented than those opposed to further development on the property. Aside from Bacara’s legal team, several employees showed up to tout the resort’s benefit to the community, and state their satisfaction with the company as an employer, as well as a couple of members of the Coastal Band of Chumash Indians. “People like myself rely on companies like Bacara to build a life here,” said Blanca Hernandez, a Goleta homeowner and Bacara’s benefits coordinator. Members of the environmental community and opponents of development at Bacara who showed up were surprisingly low in number, with stalwarts Barbara Massey and Margaret Connell appearing, in addition to a couple of Surfrider members and Connie Hannah of the Santa Barbara Chapter of League of Women Voters. “We can congratulate Bacara for providing an excellent public access that was currently unavailable, but it’s important to remember that Haskell’s Beach had public use long before Bacara was there,” said Hannah.
While city councilmember Jonny Walis voted against initiation of most of the amendments being examined, she did support the one about gathering information about tsunami impacts, saying that it is the city’s responsibility to provide this information for Bacara. Furthermore, she said that by investing the City Staff’s time and resources into the initiation process, the amendments would not be able to be removed at a later date due to their momentum. Councilmember Roger Aceves voted cautiously as well, with all of the proposed amendment initiations being supported by councilmembers Jean Blois and Eric Onnen, and by Mayor Michael Bennett. “What bothers me is that we’re not showing the public the entire project—we’re piecemealing this,” said Aceves.
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Thank you, Ben for the very well-written article on such an important issue as this, as usual. I just can't believe that there were only a few members of Surfrider present. What are we doing wrong? We can get hundreds of people to show up for very expensive fudraising concerts, movies, etcetera, but we can't get more than a few bodies to convene at these meetings to show community leaders how concerned we are for the protection of environmentally sensitive habitats and public beach access!! SOLUTION - perhaps if we organized pre- or post-meeting FUN-raisers, parties, etc. we would be able to attract enough concerned citizens to show up and make an impression. There is a very important County Beach Access issue coming up at a budget hearing on the week of June 9th. Let's get something going!!! -For the Coast
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nonni (anonymous profile)
May 23, 2008 at 9:49 a.m. (Suggest removal)
OMG! Underage drinking and graffiti! A security concern? Are they worried Alvin will get tagged with spray paint? Or is it more like if they get the condo’s they can take over the whole valley and the general public will not be able to go over the hill past the oil/gas refinery for beach access? Therefore anyone not deemed a guest, or Bacarra related, can be asked to leave. Hmmm now let me see? Oh, and one person, probably pretty senior on the staff there made comments about how great her job/employer is. Was that rehearsed/coerced both or neither? I smell lemon badges!
Why doesn’t someone do an independent economic study as to how much that place REALLY helps out local economy?
What will condo/timeshares get us? A bigger more exclusive Bacarra for sure. Will it be a Bacarra that more willing to cooperate with local laws, the state costal commission and abide by the rules that they agreed to initially? Not. Basically what you get is a Miramar out in Go go leta and the valley beyond the gas plant on shut down. On the other side you have Craig McCaws new mansion, and Naples mess? This whole save the Gaviota coast thing is really starting to lose some steam.
So what do we do? Reward them with more! Basically by their actions they have revealed themselves as bullies, and need to be treated as such. The owner is a former golden gloves boxer I hear and it would seem that their attitude is !@#$% the locals, and the local govt, and @#$%@# the costal commission, surf rider foundation, and anything we agreed to, we will do what we want. The best way to deal with a bully is go give it back two fold. Or you can spend the rest of your days being the bullies biaaaatch. Of course, this would involve some nadular fortitude, which I am not sure there is much of in the city of Goleta govt. They are doing the 15 round bout waiting till the local fervor over their crap to wears out. They will keep pushing until they get their way. I think the city of Goleta, county board of supervisors, and state costal commission needs to step up, and stand up to these people, and tell them we want MORE costal access. Yes that is right you heard it here first!
Also, I have a question regarding Chumash burial grounds that were agreed to be preserved: So, they buried them with the hotel, and they agreed to plant natural grasses over them and leave it? So all the bulldozing and excavating did nothing to disturb? So now the Bacarra is going to back on its word, and bulldoze/excavate the rest of the valley and it is cool? Nothing disturbed? No problem?
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bimboteskie (anonymous profile)
May 23, 2008 at 4:51 p.m. (Suggest removal)
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