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Thursday, April 17, 2003

If you signed up on the National Park Service website to receive the Gaviota Coast Feasability Study, you should have recieved your copy in the mail by now . If not, you can read the short or the long version online. The summary, it seems, is that the NPS recommends against inclusion of Gaviota into the National Park System. Although it meets two of the requirement for a park because it contains resources which are "nationally significant" and not presently represented in the existing parks, it is not currently a feasable addition due to landowner opposition and budgetary matters. Public comments are still accepted until July 18 and there will be meetings the 2nd week of May.

Thus, far the Orange County developers have not gotten a foothold in the Gaviota Coast. There are the "McMansions" and the Dos Pueblos Golf Links proposals which have surfaced in the last few years, but no soil has been broken (save Bacara). The current landowners spoke of wanting to be their own stewards of their land and not having "the man" come in and do it for them. As a fan of personal rights to liberty and property I respect that point of view and can only hope they can be kept to their word. There is no recourse if we do see "Ocean's Meadow" and other horribly named cookie cutter housing projects out there in a generation (I made that one up, isn't it easy). However, having 4mpg RV's with Satelite dishes on them roving this gem of a coastline is no better, not to mention having the Federal Government manage what once was an unspoiled stretch of private land. So what do we do now? Enjoy ourselves as much as we can on this coast, and put our faith in the landowners who promised us stewardship.
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Santa Barbara Surfing. Created by Tim Maddux. Continued by Pope.