Santa Barbara County will get to add a stretch of pristine and private California coastline to its list of county parks as part of a proposal hailed as a win for the public that was approved Thursday by the California Coastal Commission.
The deal to transfer 36 acres of coastal property from the owners of the private Cojo Jalama Ranches to the county comes as the result of an “amicable resolution” recently reached following a years-long enforcement action brought against ranch owners by the commission.
“This is one of the most (environmentally) sensitive sites in California,” said Commission Executive Director Jack Ainsworth. “It’s unfortunate that we had to get here through enforcement.”
Commission enforcement staff have worked with ranch owners to mitigate unpermitted development on the ranch, which is roughly the size of the city of San Francisco; until recently, those efforts had proven unsuccessful.
As part of the adopted settlement agreement, ranch owners will transfer the property, which has never been open to the public, to the county for an extension of the current public park at Jalama Beach.
“I have goosebumps (thinking about it) because getting that kind of access has been impossible,” former county planning commissioner Susan Jordan told the panel.
She said during her tenure as a commissioner, it always struck her that the public had no access to the “extraordinary stretch of coast” that sits just south of Jalama Beach to what is locally known as The Crack.
“It’s like going back a 100 years,” Jordan said. “That was always a reoccurring theme for me.”
The vast majority of the land has never been developed and historically was used for cattle grazing. It was once known as the Bixby Ranch and owned by a famous California ranching family.
The property includes 11 miles of mostly untouched coastline that straddles Point Conception; one of the unpermitted violations that occurred on the property is a road that was carved from the blufftop down to the beach.
Additionally, 37 wells were drilled across the more than 24,000-acre property, 16 roads were graded and developed and three stock ponds were filled.
Vegetation, including native oak woodlands, was also removed, altering the property’s topography, making it susceptible to erosion and harming wildlife, according to commission staff.
“The violations cover acres and acres of land,” said Aaron McLendon, the commission’s deputy chief of enforcement. “The activities and their results still remain on the property.”
As part of the commission’s action on Thursday, the panel also issued a cease-and-desist order to ranch owners for all unpermitted activities on the property, as well as a restoration order, which includes the planting of 200 acres of native oaks on the property.
Property owners can also apply for after-the-fact permits through the county to keep the drilled wells in operation. They have committed to keeping the property for agricultural operations only, though.
The settlement also includes payment of $500,000 to fund public access and environmental projects through the Coastal Commission, as well as plans for an additional 300 acres of mitigation that will include removal of invasive ice plant on the property.
McLendon and many others praised the settlement as a win for not only the Coastal Commission but also the public and the state of California. He said the transfer of coastal land alone was worth “millions of dollars.”
“This is the largest area of mitigation ever achieved for an enforcement case in California,” McLendon said. “We are thrilled.”
