Ellwood Mesa

Ellwood Mesa plans taking shape, poised for public review.

By David Downs
South Coast Beacon

nticing land improvements and not-so-enticing perimeter housing on the Ellwood Mesa goes up for public review in early February as part of the unprecedented effort to protect most of the area from condos and parking lots.
Environmental impact reports from UCSB, the city of Goleta and Santa Barbara County should be ready at roughly the same time in early February, said county planner Peter Imhof. The three agencies will hold separate public hearings on each EIR, as well as multiple, nonaffiliated public reviews.
The county, the city and UCSB hope to continue giving local residents the lead voice in the process, which is intended to save 137 acres of contiguous open space while building hundreds of units for UCSB undergraduates, graduate students and other South Coast residents.
The university plans to build the most units, said UCSB senior planner Sheri Hamond. Up to 387 units could be built on the school’s land, but construction would be shifted to the outskirts of UCSB’s holdings in Ellwood.
“We are going to have a larger contiguous ecosystem due to the redesign, as well as a larger aspect of habitat restoration and hopefully some public access,” she said.
Parking and transportation for residents of the new units, followed by just how the land will be preserved dominate neighbor concerns about the three-way proposal, said Imhof.
“There’s significant traffic impacts at the Storke and Hollister intersection and along Storke Road,” he said. “Something which the EIRs consider is addressing exactly what the levels of service the intersections are at now and how the traffic and car trips generated by this project would affect the levels of service in the future,” said Imhof.
“Hikers, walkers, bicyclists and equestrian users also have their particular interests in the open-space plan,” he said. “We’re trying to provide for a legitimate use by all the parties.”
The city of Goleta also has $20 million to purchase its share of Ellwood from developer Bob Comstock. Trust for Public Land consultant Suzanne Moss said the fund-raising effort had a great year in 2003. More than $8 million came in from local residents, Goleta, the county, Caltrans and federal coffers.
Moss said the trust is working on multimillion-dollar state grants for Ellwood in 2004, but the project is by no means out of the woods.
Land trust deadlines for fund raising loom in 2004, said consultant Carla Frisk, “but it looks like things are moving along pretty well.”
All partners agree the deal is coming together as smoothly as it can, but there is a long way to go before anticipated state Coastal Commission approval of the plan sometime near the end of 2004.
“I think that this is really a landmark planning effort that preserves some of the most significant remaining coastal areas in the region,” said Imhof. “This is a classic planning effort trying to provide simultaneously for different policy goals. … One is the dire need for additional housing, (while) at the same time the central goal is to create and enhance very significant open spaces.”