Santa Barbara County must conduct an environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act before moving ahead with its controversial Hot Springs trailhead parking project, Superior Court Judge Thomas Anderle ruled on Wednesday.

Anderle issued the ruling on Wednesday in Santa Barbara County Superior Court.

“The Court finds that the County’s planned activity to create parking at the trailhead of the Hot Springs Trail is the type of activity that is capable of causing direct or reasonably foreseeable indirect effects on the trail environment and is therefore a ‘project’ within the meaning of CEQA,” Anderle wrote.

The county, the ruling states, failed to proceed in a manner required by law and committed a “prejudicial abuse of discretion” when it acted to proceed with the parking creation project without conducting any form of environmental review pursuant to CEQA.

“The Court will therefore grant the petition for writ of mandate, and will issue a pre-emptory writ of mandate, which, among other requirements, prohibits County from proceeding with any activities in furtherance of the trailhead parking project until the Court has determined, upon Return filed by County, that County has complied with its CEQA obligations,” the ruling states.

Lina Somait, senior deputy county counsel, said the county doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

Christopher Anderson, Ross Bagdasarian, Peter Barker and James Moreley filed a petition to stop the county from pursuing its Hot Springs Trailhead Parking Design & Construction Project, citing environmental and evacuation concerns with the increased traffic.

The petition came after the county sent letters to three separate, unidentified property owners, ordering them to remove any public improvements in front of their homes in the right-of-way on East Mountain Drive, threatening them with fines if they didn’t comply, which is how Anderson, Bagdasarian, Barker and Moreley learned about the project.

The county contended that private homeowners deliberately blocked public access to the Hot Springs Trail by placing boulders, walls, landscaping, illegal “No Parking” signs and other unpermitted private encroachments in the county road rights-of-way that otherwise would be available for parking.

“The public is entitled under California law to use the full scope of the right-of-way free of illegal encroachments placed their by their petitioners and their neighbors,” Somait said at Wednesday’s hearing.

The residents, however, hired the firm of Cappello & Noël. Attorney David Cousineau said the county did not consider the environmental impact the addition of any parking spaces would have and contended that the project should be studied as required by the California Environmental Quality Act.

Hot Springs Canyon is home to California steelhead, California red-legged frog, coast range newt, southwestern pond turtle, two-striped garter snake, Cooper’s hawk and several other plant species, the complaint states.

The residents also stated that the county did not consider evacuation plans for East Mountain Drive, Hot Springs Road and Riven Rock Road if they were to add the spaces.

Santa Barbara County First District Supervisor Das Williams called Anderle’s ruling “sad” but didn’t address the impact of the county’s Hot Springs Trailhead Parking Design & Construction Project and the construction of dozens of new parking spaces.

“This decision is a threat to every County’s ability to protect the public by removing barriers in the streetscape for purposes of evacuation, pedestrian mobility or public access,” Williams said. “It’s a sad age if governments have to do environmental review before removing rocks illegally placed during the COVID years in legal places the public has long had a right to park in.”

Cousineau disagreed with that narrative.

“The court confirmed what we have always believed: to expand parking at the trailhead, the county must first analyze the environmental impacts to the trail and surrounding sensitive areas,” Cousineau said. “We hope the County will now work with the community to reasonably address the parking issues while protecting this special area.”

The county can appeal the decision or perform the required analysis, which requires “an initial study in which the project should be unambiguously defined — preferably including the number of parking spaces which the County seeks to create for use by hikers seeking to access the trail.”