UCSB New Housing Development Plan Approved for Ellwood- Devereux

TURNING THE CORNER: Approval of UCSB housing projects clears way for public preserve
THOMAS SCHULTZ, NEWS-PRESS SENIOR WRITER
November 26, 2006


Environmental organizations representing thousands of Santa Barbara County residents are celebrating a recent milestone, a decision moving the preservation of more than 600 acres of coastal terrain a big step closer to completion.
The Nov. 17 approval of two UCSB affordable housing projects -- 172 "North Campus" faculty units on 11 of 26 acres owned by the university near Phelps and Cannon Green roads, and 151 "West Campus" student family units on 18 acres at the southwest corner of Storke Road and Whittier Drive -- angered Goleta residents who live in the area.

But in the week following a ringing 9-0 endorsement from the California Coastal Commission, project advocates described what they see as decades of benefit to come.
Campus officials hope the construction will help retain and recruit high-caliber academics otherwise shut out of the region's high-priced real estate market.

And with watchdogs from groups that include the Environmental Defense Center, Save Ellwood Shores, Friends of the Ellwood Coast and the Santa Barbara Audubon Society, UCSB brass say they anticipate a wealth of environmental gain.
The outcome of years of negotiation between environmentalists and UCSB, the approval creates a 70-acre public access preserve, which the university has agreed to turn over to a yet-to-be-determined third party to protect in perpetuity through an easement grant. Plans call for wetland restorations, grassland enhancements, erosion and drainage repairs and, among other features, trail improvements at the property.

Moreover, this so-called "south parcel" acreage adjacent to the faculty housing site is slated to help form a much larger and public Ellwood-Devereux Coast Open Space spanning 652 coastal acres and stretching more than two miles along campus, Goleta city and unincorporated Santa Barbara County properties.
Environmentalists grew concerned in the late 1990s when UCSB planners hoped to put 289 housing units at the "North Campus," including 122 atop the area's "south parcel," said Linda Krop, chief counsel at the Environmental Defense Center. She noted the area near Devereux Lagoon holds fragile habitats home to sensitive species. These include yellow warblers, least terns, white-tailed kites, burrowing owls and monarch butterflies.

"The chancellor did not want the project to go forward with community opposition," she said, noting that UCSB formed an advisory group to study options as concern swelled.

Over time, she said, "The more we asked for, the more we got. We were really impressed that the university did look at these issues with an open mind."

Conscientious faculty members and campus staff had harbored similar concerns about building across such a wide swath, said Donna Carpenter, UCSB vice chancellor of administrative services.

"We are very excited," she said. "We were able to reach that compromise, and we feel very good about it.
"It took years to get there," she said. "We have an opportunity for research on that space, and community outreach as well as educational outreach."

Far less excited about the plans are 500 Goleta residents who opposed construction of the North Campus faculty housing in particular, including more than two dozen neighbors who traveled to Huntington Beach to share their thoughts with coastal commissioners.

The neighbors say three-story portions of the project are too high, and they worry about child safety due to more traffic, plus new parking difficulties and noisy construction. The residents question whether the more than 300 UCSB faculty members who signed a campus petition in favor of the plan knew that only nine single-family homes will be built for them or their colleagues, along with two- and three-story condos.
Moreover, the neighbors disagree with the Coastal Commission's willingness to allow 25-foot buffers between development on the North Campus faculty site and wetlands located there. Normally, 100 foot buffers are required in coastal areas.

But coastal commissioners saw the 25-foot allowance as an acceptable and lawful compromise for obtaining preservation at the adjacent 'south parcel.'

Diane Conn, of Save Ellwood Shores, agreed with that determination.

"One of the reasons we thought that was acceptable is because there's a lot of interconnectivity with the wetlands," she said, adding that this interplay increases functionality.

In addition, she said, UCSB has experts on restoring, managing and monitoring wetlands. "They are good at what they do."

"We really felt that the project . . . was not only lawful within the Coastal Act and within their (UCSB's) own long-range development plan, but also brings a tremendous amount of habitat," she said. "It's going to be an incredible legacy. Hopefully, people will begin to see that. In 50 years, if it does what it is supposed to do, we are just going to have something that people are going to be thrilled about every day, that we have wildlands amid urban development."

To build the new housing, which should start late next year, UCSB has agreed to enhance 8.3 acres of 'south parcel' wetland and buffer habitat, create and enhance 2.6 acres of native grassland there, remove invasive non-native species throughout the property, conduct erosion and drainage repairs on four acres to reduce sediment flow to Devereux Slough, close 3.5 miles of unplanned trails, enhance 1.79 miles of existing trails and create nearly a half-mile of new trail to reroute pedestrians from fragile areas.
The university will create two full-time environmental positions: one to oversee restoration projects on the "south parcel" and one to manage the Coal Oil Point Reserve's snowy plover docent program.
Where the faculty homes are going, UCSB will build a bridge over a restored Phelps Creek to protect the waterway.

And the campus will improve 2,900 feet of the West Campus Bluff Trail, which runs from Camino Majorca Road westward to Coal Oil Point Reserve which, in conjunction with all this, is expanding by 40 acres.
Eventually, UCSB, Goleta and the county plan to jointly submit a comprehensive habitat management plan for the entire 600-plus-acre Ellwood-Devereux Coast Open Space to the Coastal Commission for consideration. The preserve will include Ellwood Mesa, where Goleta last year successfully shifted dozens of homes away from the coastline.

A hearing on the management plan is possible sometime next year.

Before that would happen, however, Ocean Meadows Golf Course needs approval from the county Board of Supervisors for a proposed housing project on the club's eastern flank.

The course borders the UCSB faculty and student family housing sites and the 'south parcel.'

Its proposal impacts the future management of the Ellwood-Devereux open space largely because bike and pedestrian paths through the project will run to and from the adjacent preserve, according to John Campanella, president of Bermant Homes.

In partnership with Bermant Development Co., course owner Devereux Creek Properties plans to build 32 new single-family homes, 21 affordable condo units, five town houses and a 5,000-square-foot maintenance building, and to replace a 2,037-square-foot clubhouse and a 1,470-square-foot golf cart barn with a 4,700-square-foot clubhouse and 2,100-square-foot cart barn.

e-mail: tschultz@newspress.com
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For more information, go to http://facilities.ucsb.edu/planning/ellwood-devereux/