[Noozhawk’s note: This is the third in a series of articles exploring the past, present and future of Glen Annie Golf Club, and similar, emblematic projects on the South Coast. Click here for the first article. Click here for the second article.]

The story of Glen Annie Golf Club is more than a tale of a golf course.

It’s an example of just how chaotic the planning process in the city of Goleta can be.

Not yet 8 years old, Goleta is wedged between two seemingly immovable forces. To the west, is the majestic Gaviota coast, which now accounts for some 50 percent of all the remaining open space in Southern California. To the east, is Santa Barbara, whose renowned Mediterranean architecture has inspired endless hours of navel-gazing and impassioned battles over how to balance the city’s historic fidelity with the need for housing that can accommodate the South Coast’s beleaguered middle class.

Goleta officials thus find themselves in an unenviable tug-of-war between two competing needs: preserving the beauty of “The Good Land,” which serves as the gateway to Gaviota, and bringing housing to an area that many — particularly those in the business community — believe is desperately lacking.

True, Glen Annie, at 405 Glen Annie Road, is located just outside city limits in Santa Barbara County. But it has much more political relevance to Goleta.

As a result, the planning process for the course has been exceptionally messy, and this year’s near-death experience of Glen Annie Golf Club is a case in point.

If you’ll recall, the public was told that in order to save the notoriously insolvent club, Glen Annie needed to shrink its course considerably so that 185 homes could be developed on the property. To sweeten the deal, developer John Dewey and then-golf course owner Burt Sperber threw in some soccer fields, a park and hiking trails.

From the perspective of many, the entire ordeal seemed to resemble a dog chasing its tail. The public was given all sorts of conflicting information: the golf course would close, the golf course would stay open. Goleta officials expressed interest in annexing the course — and even codified that interest in the city’s General Plan — yet in July the City Council voted against even studying the possibility. The General Plan calls for eventually expanding city boundaries to encompass Glen Annie but keeping housing off the property, and yet city staff recommended approval of the developer’s proposal to study the feasibility of building 185 houses there.

What’s going on here?

There are two ways to look at the Glen Annie saga. To some, it is an illustration of how city and county leaders made long-term planning decisions with a short-term mindset. To them, it’s a clear case of tunnel-vision planning guided by the invisible hand of politics. To others, it shows how the Glen Annie developers were trying to power their way upstream by proposing to put homes on land that was never meant for housing. In the eyes of the second group, the developers were trying to muscle an unfeasible proposal through the system.

The Glen Annie housing proposal got its start in 2006, when the golf course camp initially took it to the county for consideration. County officials balked at the idea of developing houses there, pointing out that the Glen Annie property is outside the county’s urban boundary line. At the time, then-3rd District Supervisor Brooks Firestone suggested that the developers talk to Goleta instead. After all, city leaders had already expressed interest in annexing the land. Plus, golfers must take city roads to get to the course.

In June, after spending three years talking to residents, city staff members and politicians, Dewey and Sperber brought their proposal to the Goleta City Council. On a 3-2 vote, they were denied.

In a bit of circular logic, among the reasons cited for the no vote was the fact that the Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCO — the county’s top authority on annexation issues — in March had rejected the city’s request to place Glen Annie within the city’s sphere of influence. (This essentially would have set the stage for annexation.) While it’s true that LAFCO denied the city’s request, it also had urged the city to study the matter and bring it back. Nonetheless, the council declined.

Naturally, Dewey, the developer, is among those who believe Glen Annie amounts to a cautionary tale of how politics can get in the way of making decisions that are in the best interests of the city.

“Sometimes the City Council tries to guess what the majority of their constituents would support,” he said. “I think the community was prevented from a thorough evaluation process. Personally, I prefer my council members to err on the side of studying first in detail before making decisions.”

Dewey said the council’s rejection of his proposal left him shocked.

Everything seemed to be in place. To his ears, the public’s response at numerous community meetings over the years seemed productive and positive. A majority of council members seemed supportive. Above all, the city’s planning staff had recommended approval.

“They are very tough cookies to satisfy,” said Dewey, noting how the city’s planning staff had earlier recommended denial of other high-profile development proposals, such as Bishop Ranch.

Also, studying the possibility of developing homes on the land would have cost the city virtually nothing: Dewey was willing to pick up the estimated $750,000 tab.

But the 3-2 rejection drove a stake through the plan, which was three and a half years in the making.

“Naturally, we were very disappointed in the outcome,” Dewey told Noozhawk. “We thought we had that support.”

On the other side, Goleta Mayor Roger Aceves is among those who believe Dewey and company were trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

“The bottom line is … we’re not at a point now where our city needs any additional housing inventory,” Aceves told Noozhawk.

Aceves scoffs at Dewey’s contention that a majority of council members seemed supportive.

“He’s assuming decisions were made before the process has been vetted out,” Aceves said. “It would be inappropriate for me as a decision maker to let somebody know how I’m going to vote on something before it comes to council.”

Aceves said he isn’t opposed to the idea of annexing Glen Annie; in fact, he hopes the city does it. Rather than building homes on the property, however, Aceves said he wants the city to purchase Glen Annie as is, and then run it as a municipal golf course.

“This is a great opportunity,” he said. “It would be our first and only municipal golf course.”

Such a move would likely require a bond, which would cost in the neighborhood of $6 million — the appraised value of the land.

In a sense, Aceves’ preference for purchasing Glen Annie and operating it as a municipal course jibes with the city’s long-term plans as stated in the General Plan, which is generally the closest thing a city has to a constitution.

Adopted in 2006, Goleta’s General Plan refers to the land as a “future service” area, meaning the city anticipates annexing it at some point. But the General Plan also stipulates that any county land north of Cathedral Oaks Road — such as Glen Annie — should remain zoned for agricultural use, and that hillside development should be avoided.

The General Plan “opened the door for the consideration of annexation, while keeping (Glen Annie’s) status quo as a golf course and excluding housing,” said Steve Chase, Goleta’s director of planning and environmental services.

But, as the Glen Annie saga indicates, things don’t always go according to the general plan. After all, Chase himself recommended that the council undertake a study of the golf course’s proposal for housing — despite the General Plan’s strictures against it.

Chase said that under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have recommended such a thing. But the extraordinary circumstance behind his recommendation was inextricably tied to a proposed project on a neighboring piece of property: the Shelby Land Trust.

Located directly west of the golf course at 7400 Cathedral Oaks Road, the 14-acre Shelby property is actually already within the city limits. The Shelby developer wanted to build 75 homes on the land, which, like the course, is situated north of Cathedral Oaks and is zoned for agriculture. The developer proposed changing the zoning to residential.

For various reasons, Chase didn’t like the idea. In February 2008, he recommended that the City Council reject the Shelby proposal. Chase believed that the neighborhood would stick out too much, like “a sore thumb,” north of Cathedral Oaks Road.

“Land conversion is a big deal,” he said. “It’s not frequent, it’s not ordinary. It’s generally years of attention.”

The council, however, spurned Chase’s recommendation and granted approval — also on a 3-2 vote.

Chase said his recommendation in favor of the Glen Annie proposal made sense only in the context of the Shelby vote. In his view, without Shelby, the Glen Annie development also would stick out too much. But because Shelby had already been approved, it made sense to broaden the idea. In other words, two sore thumbs put together might add up to a nice neighborhood.

Although Glen Annie had the added benefit of some high-profile elements, such as the soccer fields and hiking trails — and so was in a better position to stand on its own merits — Chase said he would not have recommended approval of Glen Annie were it not for Shelby.

The idea, he said, was to include both projects into a single feasibility study, as well as a single Environmental Impact Report.

At the end of the day, this meant that the council’s denial of Glen Annie has put the Shelby project in jeopardy as well.

“The choice they made with Glen Annie had as much to do with Shelby as it did with Glen Annie,” Chase said. “Shelby needed Glen Annie.”

A comparison of the Glen Annie and Shelby projects also illuminates how land-use decisions in Goleta have been driven at least in part by politics. In both cases, the council defied Chase’s recommendations, but for opposite reasons.

The council’s 3-2 decision in favor of Shelby came at a time when the slim majority belonged to the council members widely thought to be pro-growth. But a year and a half later, when the council rejected the Glen Annie proposal, the pendulum had swung the other way and the slim majority belonged to the newly elected slow-growth members.

For this reason, the housing proposal isn’t officially dead. The course’s new owners — who foreclosed on the property in July after Sperber couldn’t pay back his development debts — haven’t tipped their hand on future plans.

But one option is to wait to see if city residents elect a more development friendly council in 2010.

In an irony, it’s still possible the course could wind up being purchased by Dewey, who told Noozhawk he has heard the new owners might soon be looking to sell, and if so, he might consider buying. (The course’s owners couldn’t be reached for comment.)

In any event, despite Dewey’s deep disappointment with the way things panned out, he said he has no hard feelings.

“I harbor no ill will toward the City Council,” he said. “They made the decision they did with the info they had in front of them. I only wish they would have put a lot more information in front of them before making a final decision.”

— Noozhawk staff writer Rob Kuznia can be reached at rkuznia@noozhawk.com.