Hundreds of people showed up to Thursday’s Architecture Review Board meeting in Carpinteria wearing green and holding signs to oppose a proposed farm preserve and bungalow resort on the bluffs next to the nature preserve.
Residents shared stories of falling in love on the bluffs, sharing final moments with loved ones, grieving, and watching their children play on the bluffs.
Concerns included an increase in traffic, damage to wildlife in the preserve and the desecration of Chumash land. Some called the project blasphemy, a disgrace that goes against Carpinteria’s values. The sentiment in the room, and the meeting’s overflow viewing tent outside Carpinteria City Hall, was clear: Residents do not want this project in their town.
The project includes 41 affordable housing units, a 99-room bungalow-style retreat, a gathering barn, a farm strand, a 2-acre farm, 3 acres of preserved farmland and 10.5 acres of open space.
“We believe we’re bringing forward a balanced project that significantly incorporates land conservation, on-site restoration, protection of existing coastal farmland, greatly needed affordable housing and a developmental proposal in line with the city’s general plan,” developer and architect Matthew Goodwin told the board.
The Architecture Review Board doesn’t have the authority to approve or deny the project. Thursday night’s packed meeting served as a preliminary hearing and an opportunity to give feedback to the developers on the project’s design, architecture and landscaping.
The first few speakers were children from Carpinteria who read poems and short speeches about the importance of the Carpinteria bluffs, the wildlife there and the desire to not have the land ruined by the project.
Local Scout Pack 50 of Carpinteria made a brief appearance at the meeting.
“We teach the kids about the outdoor code, and one of the foundations of the outdoor code is to be conservation-minded, and I think this project is not in line with that at all,” troop leader Todd Stewart said to the board.
Ernestine Ygnacio-De Soto, a Barbareño Chumash elder and a well-known figure in Santa Barbara County, was one of many tribal members in attendance.
“Walk softly over this land, because beneath it our ancestors are sleeping here, and I can see them after a big rain kicking out on the side and sticking up out of the ground,” Ygnacio-De Soto said first in her native Chumash language, Barbareño, and then in English. “Be still, listen, the spirit of the land speaks, and so do the children and so do all the public.”
Many other native Chumash members spoke out to protest the project, calling the land sacred, and said that if the project goes through, they’ll be digging up the graves of their ancestors.
Patrick Crooks, president of Citizens for Carpinteria Bluffs, also spoke during public comment and addressed the importance of respecting the Chumash land, and how the open space on the Carpinteria bluffs is important not just for residents but for visitors.
“This project before us tonight aims to exploit the soul of our town,” Crooks told the board. “It’s a slap in the face. This project ignores the opinions that so many Carpinterians have communicated: Why? For selfish individual profit, of course. A resort in this location is inappropriate.”
Crooks said the project would interfere with the view of the ocean and the Channel Islands, would have little benefit for Carpinteria, and that how the 4,700 truckloads needed for the project would cause damage to the land.
Public comment continued for many hours, with residents saying the project goes against Carpinteria’s general plan, protesting the removal of 108 trees, and saying that the city does not have enough water to support the project.
The meeting started at 5:30 p.m. and ended around 10 p.m.
On Zoom, 230 people watched the meeting and several spoke during public comment, some from Los Angeles and Ojai, sharing memories of visiting the bluffs, and warning what an overdeveloped coast does to the land and community.
During public comment, only three people expressed support for the project. Most notably was Dustin Hoiseth, public policy manager for the Santa Barbara South Coast Chamber of Commerce who expressed the chamber’s support for the project.
“This project will be a major economic driver for the city of Carpinteria,” Hoiseth said. “It will create new jobs, it will encourage visitors to come to Carpinteria, support local business and will generate $2 million a year in general fund revenue for the city.”
Hoiseth also expressed concerns that if this project doesn’t happen, something worse could go in that space.
Following public comment, the Architectural Review Board members made several comments with suggestions to the project developers.
Patrick O’Connor called for the story poles, which are currently on the project site to show where the buildings would go, to be redone to reflect the entire square footage that the buildings would take up and that the flags should be red instead of blue, to make it easier for people to see.
O’Connor also noted that the project doesn’t address the cultural significance of the Chumash people, and said he was not in favor of advancing the project from preliminary to final.
Amy Blakemore, board vice chair, called the program aggressive and said that 99 rooms and residential housing would be a lot for the space. Blakemore also pointed out some logistical concerns she had regarding parking, a lack of maintenance space, and that having organic farming and a resort in one area would be incompatible.
“I cannot support a project that has 47,000 cubic yards of grading. I just don’t think that that’s appropriate,” Blakemore said. “I just think the level of detail of what you’re proposing is a really difficult thing.”
Board chair Brad Stein said the current state of the project was incompatible with the neighborhood, buildings along the ridgeline should be smaller, and that while many of the trees aren’t native, they have been there for 100 years and have become an iconic part of the landscape.
“If it was somewhere else, it would be a nice design. I like the structures with the look of it, the idea,” Stein said. “It doesn’t conform to the Carpinteria standards that we’ve had on other projects here. Right now, I can say emphatically that where I’m sitting I would never support this.”
Stein ended his comments by telling the developers that if they want to sell the parcel of land and put the project somewhere else, the community would jump at the opportunity to purchase and preserve the land.
“If I had a $10 bill, I’d wave it here and say here’s your first 10 bucks if you want to sell that parcel,” Stein said.
The board made a motion to continue the project, meaning that the developers will have to come back to the board at a later time with a revised version of the project based on the board’s comments.
As of now, it is unclear what the developers’ next step will be, and how they might revise the project.
