Despite financial troubles, successful efforts to restructure loan debt means the Santa Barbara Ranch property on the Gaviota coast won’t be up for public auction this week.

As a result of the credit crisis and real estate downturn, developer Matt Osgood has been working to renegotiate his debt on the land, also known as Naples, for the past eight or nine months. A notice of unified trustee’s sale document stated he owes $78.4 million and defaulted on payments in 2009, which could have resulted in a public auction to the highest bidder with cash.

The Santa Barbara Ranch project, which plans 71 luxury homes on 3,200 acres along the Gaviota coast west of Goleta, has faced governmental and financial hurdles on its way to conditional approval.

Osgood told Noozhawk on Saturday that he has worked out deals with both creditors, First Bank and Avalon, and he plans to have a substantial payment in June and about half, or at least a “significant amount,” in December. He said he stopped making payments last June because he felt “overleveraged,” given the falling property values.

“It’s taken quite a bit of effort and energy to get this stable again,” he said.

The debt was put in place in December 2005, which was “a different world” as far as credit availability and property value was concerned, he said.

The Naples Coalition, the Environmental Defense Center and the Santa Barbara chapter of the Surfrider Foundation have been fervent opponents of the development and filed lawsuits in 2008 against the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, challenging the project’s approvals.

“I don’t know why they’d be excited there are so many legal lots that I could sell tomorrow,” Osgood said. “That’s a threat to the community.”

Many of the conflicts with approval came about because of Osgood’s decision to split the project into two areas — the Naples town site on bluffs overlooking the ocean and the foothills of Dos Pueblos Ranch across Highway 101 — despite having a single environmental impact report.

While the coastal portion of the project hasn’t been approved — or heard, yet — by the California Coastal Commission, development is slated to begin on the approved inland portion within the year.

The map should be finalized in 2011, with eight lots being developed this year and early next year, Osgood said.

However, Osgood can’t proceed with the inland portion of the project until the Coastal Commission acts on any appeals associated with the inland portion.

— Noozhawk staff writer Giana Magnoli can be reached at gmagnoli@noozhawk.com.