December 3, 2002
Contact: Jeff Kuyper, EDC: 805.963.1622
Scott Bull, GCC: 805. 403.3078

Naples Coalition NEWS RELEASE
906 Garden Street, Santa Barbara CA, 93101
tel. 805.564-7892 fax. 805.564.6694 savenaples@yahoo.com

GROUPS OPPOSE PIECEMEAL REVIEW OF PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT AT NAPLES

SANTA BARBARA, CA - Today the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors considered changes to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the County and the property owners and development interests of the Naples property on the Gaviota Coast. The amendment would allow five mansions to be built on the site as early as this winter without environmental review. Orange County-based developers are planning to construct 55 luxury mansions on the rural property that is located near the proposed ARCO golf course and the Bacara resort. At the hearing, the Environmental Defense Center (EDC), representing the Naples Coalition, called upon the County to change the MOU to comply with the County's Local Coastal Plan (LCP) and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Citizens concerned about the future of the Gaviota Coast spoke out against the specter of development at Naples, the gateway to the Gaviota Coast, and planned to hold a rally for Naples at noon on the steps of the County Administration building.

For years, Naples owners have claimed that a map from the 1800s depicts over 500 legal lots on the property. After years of legal wrangling over the validity of those lots, the County eventually settled the litigation by recognizing the "Official Map of Naples," which included 250 lots. Now, Matt Osgood-an Orange County developer-and the County are negotiating a Memorandum of Understanding that would allow Osgood to submit applications to develop Naples. In the MOU, the County has agreed to divide the development into two separate projects: an "inland" project consisting of 16 units, and a "coastal" project consisting of 39 units. Dividing the project in this manner violates the California Environmental Quality Act and prevents the County from performing an adequate environmental review of the project's impacts. EDC, on behalf of the Naples Coalition, objected to the decision to separate the environmental review, and pointed out the MOU's inconsistency with the Local Coastal Plan, which requires that the County first try to transfer development rights from rural Naples to an urban area.

"What happens at Naples could set a precedent for the rest of the Gaviota Coast and other rural lands in the County," said Linda Krop, Chief Counsel for the Environmental Defense Center. "In order to allow an informed decision, the Naples project must be considered in its entirety and must comply with our Local Coastal Plan policies."

"The Gaviota Coast is the last undeveloped stretch of southern California coastline from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border," said Maya Kasberg of the Naples Coalition. "There is tremendous support in the community to create a strategy to protect Naples and we request that the Board of Supervisors grant us more time to find funding to save Naples."

In addition to these issues, EDC is investigating reports of illegal grading on the Naples property in which the developer bulldozed a 35-foot wide road, installed large water pipes, and dumped several hundred cubic yards of dirt into a tributary of Dos Pueblos Creek without applying for the necessary permits.

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The Naples Coalition, which includes the Gaviota Coast Conservancy, Sierra Club, Surfrider Foundation, Citizens Planning Association, League of Women Voters, and Audubon Society, made the following requests to the Board of Supervisors:

1. No "piece-mealing": Developers for Naples are trying to split the project into parts and analyze each part separately. They have only applied to build five homes on the inland side right now, although they ultimately want to build 55. This is an attempt to get around addressing impacts from all the proposed homes. The California Environmental Quality Act states that any proposed project must have an environmental review of the ENTIRE project to study and mitigate all impacts. Piece-mealing undermines assessment of the project's cumulative impacts and deprives the public and decision-makers of information vital to making informed decisions.

2.Study Transfer of Development Right first: A Transfer of Development rights (TDR) allows the local agency to transfer rights to build from one site to another.

The County's Local Coastal Plan (Policy 2-13) requires the County to discourage development at Naples and to encourage the transfer of development rights to a more suitable urban location. The LCP requires the County to first focus its efforts on transferring development from the rural Naples site to an already urbanized area. The law says that development at Naples is a last resort. At this time, TDR has not been formally looked at for this site. The Gaviota Coast is a rural landscape and the policy was created to ensure that any recognized lots at Naples could be transferred to an urban area. The City of Santa Barbara has requested to be considered as a "receiver site" for the Naples development. The Naples Coalition urges the County to immediately conduct a survey to determine the availability of receiver sites for transfer of development credits to an urban area and not allow urban development on the rural Gaviota Coast.

3. Comply with the Law: The MOU must comply with long-standing environmental review and land use laws. As currently written, the MOU violates the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and the Local Coastal Plan.

4. Enforcement. The County should stop processing all Naples development applications until it investigates and takes appropriate enforcement action for unlawful bulldozing that occurred on the Naples property in late September 2002.

5. Long-term Vision. Since the future of the Naples site is inextricably tied to the future of the rest of the Gaviota Coast, any development at should be considered in the context of a comprehensive, long-term vision for the coast. The County should delay the MOU until it can study alternatives for protecting the rural character of the coast, including an urban boundary line, incentive programs for conservation of agricultural land and open space, funding for conservation easements, an update of the land use policies and zoning for the coast, etc.

"We believe that the MOU should reflect what is required by long-standing environmental and land use laws," said Jeff Kuyper, attorney with the Environmental Defense Center. "Unfortunately, the MOU far short of this standard because it would allow piecemeal environmental review of the development's impacts to the Gaviota Coast."

The Environmental Defense Center has prepared a letter expanding on these issues and addressing the potential violations of County and State policies if the MOU is not amended. Contact Jeff Kuyper at 805.963.1622 for a copy.

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