A decades-long effort to allow public access on Hollister Ranch beaches has resulted in a conceptual plan calling for phased steps to allow people onto the remote coastline via shuttle, car, trail or bicycle.
The access dispute — most recently fought at administrative, legislative and legal levels — centers on 8½ miles of coastline at Hollister Ranch, a 14,400-acre residential subdivision and working cattle ranch west of Gaviota State Park.
Over the years, the Hollister Ranch Owners Association has spearheaded efforts to keep the beaches private.
The Hollister Ranch Public Access Program, adopted by the California Coastal Commission in the early 1980s but never implemented, was revived in 2019 amid a push to update the plan, leading to meetings to hash out details.
This month, the California Coastal Commission released a conceptual plan for the Hollister Ranch Coastal Access Program (HRCAP) for limited public access to Hollister Ranch beaches — Agua Caliente, Alegria, Sacate, Drake’s, Bulito and San Augustin, some of the state’s most famous surf breaks.
“The vision for the Hollister Ranch Coastal Access Program is to provide public access to the beaches along the Hollister Ranch coastline and to do it in a way that 1) preserves the qualities that make a visit to the ranch beaches a unique and memorable experience and 2) ensures equitable access to the beaches,” the plan states.
While the plan marks a significant milestone, there’s still a long road ahead before people can somewhat routinely access the beaches.
The plan reviews four types of access — shuttle, trail, bicycle or private vehicle — and weighs the benefits of guided versus independent access.
“Some of the other big challenges of the HRCAP are how to provide public access that is safe, minimizes impacts to the high quality coastal resources, and ensures that private property rights are respected,” the report said. “Guided access is one way to address many of these challenges. For each of the access modes, the HRCAP calls for both guided access and independent access options.”
While access via a shuttle would resolve many concerns, cost could be the key drawback, the report noted. State Parks sites with more visitors still struggle to meet the expenses of operating shuttles, the report said, adding that any shuttle should be free or low-cost to ensure equity.
Allowing people to drive their own vehicles to the Hollister Ranch beaches would provide the most flexibility while being the most physically inclusive.
“But this mode also has the most risk in terms of potential impacts to private property and coastal resources. In order to address this, more infrastructure and management controls will be needed, particularly for independent access. Drive-in access, both guided and independent, will be very important if the cost of a shuttle program is financially infeasible. Without one of these two options, access would be physically prohibitive for many people,” the report says.
This would require more directional and safety signage, parking spaces, traffic control and patrols making even drive-in guided access unlikely to occur in the first year.
A trail connecting the Gaviota State Beach day use parking lot to the closest Hollister Ranch beach, Agua Caliente, would be about 3.5 miles long, and could also be a challenging option for access, according to the Coastal Commission.
“First, additional property rights would need to be acquired from multiple individual landowners. The second is that the variable topography of the Hollister coastline and areas of high quality coastal habitats will make design and construction of the trail challenging,” the report says.
These factors would make construction of a trail expensive and likely to require a phased construction plan.
Bicyclists also could pose safety problems along the ranch’s steep, narrow, winding road which has several blind turns. Bikes also present a safety challenge due to the cattle operation since the fast-moving vehicles can spook livestock.
To overcome the challenges, the plan said bicyclists could be allowed on a seasonal basis with guided access to coordinate with the cattle ranching operation.
While the plan lists options, it lacks specific details. That’s because access would evolve over time based on lessons learned, public interests, and management capacity, according to the plan, which envisions a phased implementation.
For the first two years, the access plan would focus on testing the various concepts for providing access into the Hollister Ranch coastline and managing the impacts of that access. The implementation strategy will be to start with limited guided access using shuttle or bikes.
Initially, access would be limited to a maximum of 100 people per day. Starting the third year, the capacity could be capped at 500 people per day.
Several key things need to be accomplished before the public can begin to access the Hollister Ranch coastline, according to the plan: obtaining public access rights to Rancho Real Road, identifying an entity to manage the access program, forming an access program advisory committee, developing a financial plan, crafting a phase one implementation plan, securing permits, and installing necessary infrastructure.
There’s currently $300,000 from Hollister Ranch owners via an in-lieu fee program plus another $500,000 earmarked for Hollister Ranch from Santa Barbara County, but a strategy is needed for developing ongoing revenue, the plan said..
Officials also need to determine who would manage the access program. While the California Coastal Act calls for the Coastal Conservancy to implement the HRCAP, it say the officials would need to identify a public agency, nonprofit organization, or concessionaire to manage the program.
The modern plan, required by legislation sponsored by then-Assemblymember Monique Limón (now a State Senator), involves four state agencies: the Coastal Commission, Coastal Conservancy, California Department of Parks and Recreation and State Lands Commission.
After collecting comments on the conceptual plan, a draft plan will be released in early August with additonal feedback to be sought on that document.
The draft plan will be presented to the Coastal Commission during a workshop to be held when the panel meets in Santa Barbara from Oct. 13-15. Commissioners aren’t expected to make decision at that point.
Comments on the conceptual plan to Hollister Ranch beach access can be sent to HRCAP.stakeholders@gmail.com.
The plan, timeline and other details about the ongoing access dispute can be found by clicking here. A recording of a public meeting about the plan can be found here.
— Noozhawk North County editor Janene Scully can be reached at jscully@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.