After years of what seemed like never-ending bickering, it’s time to celebrate.

At a joint press conference on Monday, Santa Barbara County, La Cumbre Mutual Water Co. and The Land Trust for Santa Barbara County announced a tentative agreement for moving ahead with the design and construction of the Modoc Multi-Use Path.

Early Tuesday morning at the Board of Supervisors meeting, the agreement was approved by a unanimous vote. After several years of at times acrimonious debate, the last remaining segment of the South Coast alternative transportation corridor will now become a reality.

Calling this a “monumental landmark agreement,” Santa Barbara County Second District Supervisor Laura Capps gave a heartfelt thanks to Land Trust Executive Director Meredith Hendricks and Alex Rodriquez, manager of La Cumbre Mutual Water, for their work in making this happen.

“As a mom, I have to tell you,” Capps noted, “the number of times I’ve driven along Modoc and seen the young teenagers on their bikes out on the road — it kind of made me wince out of concern and to know that eventually once the path is constructed it will be safe for them to ride.”

Capps also emphasized the access it allows for the community.

“I don’t want that to get lost, because this also provides access for people in wheelchairs and walkers and other modes, allowing everyone, inclusive of abilities or disabilities, to enjoy the path,” she said. “It’s the kind of inclusivity that we want to promote.”

Getting to Yes 

A year ago, when more promising negations finally began on what should have been a “no-brainer,” I likened the prospects of success on the route the pathway should take something like “trying to untwist a pretzel without breaking it.”

At that point, the Community Association for Modoc Preserve (CAMP) was in the midst of filing a lawsuit challenging the project, and citizens were signing petitions by the dozens to save the trees, save the preserve and save most anything else the county wanted to do there.

However, thanks to the tireless efforts of the three parties, despite plenty of setbacks and perhaps enough time for each of the parties to acknowledge the agreement was too important not to make it happen, it will soon become a reality.

On the county’s end, Public Works focused on providing an amended route following much of what was proposed by the CAMP group for the lower half of the route and keeping intrusion into the preserve along the upper half to a minimum.

As I walked the edge of Modoc with Chris Sneddon, now the director of Public Works, in March 2023 to scope out this new approach — one that what might be called the “hybrid alternative” — it wasn’t clear how or when an agreement to construct the path might occur. But the route seemed to be one much more palatable to the Land Trust and hopefully the CAMP group as well.

It was something later I began to think of as the “go low then go high” way of thinking about how to lay out the route in a way that would avoid removing almost all of the trees at the heart of most community objections and minimize impacts to the preserve.

Going “low” along the upper half of the project route would take it inside the canary palms and save them from removal; going “high” over the lower half by curving the route back up onto the edge of Modoc would save most of those along that part.

Designing for Success

In the midst of Sneddon’s efforts to visualize a hybrid alternative that might be palatable to the Land Trust, Hendricks, its executive director, provided Public Works with a detailed set of concepts titled “Design Guidelines and Easement Restrictions for the Modoc Multi-Use Path” that could serve to mitigate encroachment into the preserve.

Shrewdly, Hendricks has asked for and my understanding is that the county has agreed to follow the Land Trust’s design guidelines and allow the Land Trust to have final approval over any changes in the design as it goes through the CEQA process. 

“We’ll be there every step of the way,” Hendricks said, “to make sure that they do honor the easement and the design guidelines.”

Along with that, the Land Trust asked for just one more thing.

Despite control over design approvals for the parts of the Modoc project that would be within the preserve boundary, Hendricks asked for just a little bit more.

Cautioning that there was still a lot of uncertainty about how this process will work out, she explained that the Land Trust is still concerned about the cumulative impact of the project, especially how the overall design and location of the path might impact the preserve and the wildlife there.

As an added measure of value for the Land Trust and to demonstrate a clear net conservation gain for the environmental community, Hendricks proposed what might be called a bombshell request: creation of a conservation easement for 35 acres of undeveloped land at More Mesa that is owned by the county and is being managed by County Parks for trails. 

“On balance,” Hendricks added, “we want to come out of these things with more conservation and not less.”

Enthusiastic Support

Fortunately, Capps was an enthusiastic supporter of the idea. 

“One of the things that I’ve always valued are the urban open space areas,” she told me during a recent phone chat. “The conservation of More Mesa has been on my radar for permanent conservation since I took office.

“It’s a priority independent of the Modoc agreement. More Mesa is an incredible piece of land whether you look at it from its ecosystem values or as public open space. It has tremendous value to the community.”

While focusing on More Mesa is not an immediate goal, Capps acknowledged that creation of a conservation easement on the county’s part of the More Mesa could have a net positive on what occurs with the remaining portion of the More Mesa property now owned privately.

And, importantly, it would preclude future development on the 36 acres owned by the county.

Next Steps

While a tentative agreement for the Modoc project is in place, a final agreement committing each of the parties has yet to be signed. Hopefully, that will occur in the next few weeks and be approved by the Board of Supervisors soon thereafter.

Establishing the conservation easement for the county property at More Mesa is a bit more complicated.

Now that the Modoc agreement has been approved by the board, the most likely scenario will be for Capps to work with county staff to initiate development of a restrictive covenant on the 36-acre More Mesa property and direct them to begin work on the necessary steps to develop and record a conservation easement to protect it from future development.

Perhaps next summer you’ll have the opportunity to walk, run, bike, stroll or just plain enjoy the newly constructed pathway.

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July 2022

March 2023