Goleta Beach Master Planning

Working Group

March 18, 2004

MINUTES

1.

Welcome and Introductions

2.

Public Comments

Comments were made regarding keeping the process balanced, concerns about staff biases in developing the maps, and the need to involve other community members or members of the Natural Resources Advisory Committee in developing scenarios and approaches to save or enhance the park.

Review Draft Minutes – March 4th

The draft minutes were accepted.

4.

Updates

• Update on Goleta Beach (BEACON and Coastal Commission, etc)
  Karl Treiberg was unable to attend the meeting. The table with BEACON cost information that he shared at the last meeting is now posted on the website.

• Parks Department:
  The County is working on permit conditions related to the emergency revetment, meeting the timeline for the interim beach nourishment plan. Here are the permit condition timelines:

• Facilitator Comments/Updates:
  During the meeting today public comments will be solicited at the end of each item. Summary of materials sent in the past week:

  Goals and objectives were updated and re-sent. Proposals from other working group members such as the Coalition to Save Goleta Beach Notes from Jeremy on the various Goleta Beach scenarios.

Lynn and Pat reminded the group about the Ground Rules and asked the members if they had any to add at this time.

5.

Review our Accomplishments, Remaining Process, Expected Outcome and Subsequent Environmental Review

t has taken some time to bring everyone up to speed, but the extra meetings at the beginning, including the field trip and half day coastal workshop, have been helpful in adding to our knowledge.

Thanks to Jeremy who spent the today at Goleta Beach to meet with Working Group members earlier in the day and answered their questions.

A resolution was proposed by a group member: Do we support the objectives of the Moffatt and Nichols report, i.e., keep rocks where they are? After discussion, it was generally agreed that the resolution was premature as there are short, mid and long term goals for the park/beach. In this process we are focusing on the long-term, which is the mission for the group.

Comments and questions: Doesn’t the 30 month permit take care of the short-term by leaving the temporary rocks in place? What is the shoreline? Where does the sand begin and end? This dictates what the solution is and should be part of the elements for the park. It is more of a zone that is always changing, rather than a line.

With regards to CEQA, it appears that the County or consultant will prepare a programmatic EIR. We won’t need to be very specific (i.e width, length and direction of a groin) as the scenarios are developed.

No public comment at the end of agenda item 5.

6.

Working Group Vision of Major Land Uses at the Park

We reviewed the results of informal discussions between Jeremy Lowe and working group members from earlier in the day. The group attempted to reach agreement on the future location or configuration of various parts of the Park including:

Comments, questions and consensus are noted in the following:

Beach: Everyone agrees that the beach is important. Definition of a beach (by Jeremy): This is the active area where the beach processes are occurring, the area where wave energy is dissipated. This is an area where buildings can be erected, but not affected by erosion. It is time (season) dependant, and also depends on sea level and land movements (earthquakes). To define the beach you must specify the period of time you are in. The beach can be influenced by building structures or by soft solutions like beach nourishment. This is a natural shoreline without revetment. What do you want to achieve with the shoreline? Do you want to move it back, keep it where it’s at or move it forward (towards the sea)?

Question: How wide should the beach be? This was answered by the coastal experts, who said 200 feet.

Biologists said that this zone includes enough room for the critters to move back and forth during their lifetime. County Parks has estimated that 190 feet would be needed (from the grass). A berm would be needed to protect the park.

It was suggested that the group go back to the Feb 5th discussion where areas of agreement had already been presented.

Habitat areas: The planted areas should be primarily natives (This does not include the lawn areas or the palm tree areas).

Horseshoe pits: Comments:

• Can these be moved elsewhere? Yes.

• These pits are popular.

• The pits don’t need to be close to the water, as they are not a beach dependant activity.

• Perhaps this should be combined in one category, such as recreational amenities.

This comes into play when determining if areas can be moved to accommodate different needs such as changing the parking configuration.

Lawn areas: Can the lawn be replaced in other areas? Can it be reconfigured? Some think no, some think yes. The members agreed that the lawn is more valuable seaward of the roads. We need to keep the relationship between the turf and the sand. Having the turf adjacent to the sand is important. Does anyone agree to lose some turf in favor of preserving the beach/sand? Some said no, many disagreed.

It may be possible to reconfigure the park and increase the lawn area. Some people want things to stay the same, but the beach is changing due to environmental conditions. Some believe we will always be just applying band-aids. We won’t be able to come up with a compromise. A question was asked whether we need human intervention in this matter?

We need to be reminded about the goal: Our preferred solution is to be sustainable over 20 years and it is just not feasible to keep things where they are because it's not sustainable over the long run. We need to keep in mind and consider the impacts of our short-term actions on the mid and long term. Keep in mind what you want to see immediately, but also think about what this will do in the long term.

Summary: The lawn should be adjacent to the sand, maintain the relationship between the lawn and the sand and there should be flexibility to reconfigure the lawn.

Picnic/BBQ Areas: Maintain, at a minimum, the current facilities. One member stated that they felt out of his realm- It’s like asking someone to your kitchen and asking them what they’d like to see in your kitchen. He doesn’t feel qualified to suggest how many pits, tables, etc.

There was concern expressed that we won’t be able to agree on reducing anything. This will never happen and this whole process will be a waste of time. We need to ask- what are the potential changes? We are here to find a compromise. A suggestion was made to keep this at the broader level rather than go into detail as we are right now. Perhaps we should go into this detail during the smaller groups.

Question to County Parks: Are other County parks going through this? Response: This happened once, where they looked to the public about creating a park. They looked at their constraints and asked the community about the amenities they’d like to see in the park. This current process (Goleta Beach) is combining both processes (addressing constraints and including the community’s needs) in one process. The Parks Department took this information and combined it into a map of different scenarios.

Comment: We are looking at three scenarios, as suggested by Jeremy: retreat, hold the line or move it forward. (Also the option of do nothing, which is for the EIR)

7.

Possible Conceptual Scenarios (Alternatives)

Alissa Hummer from Susan Rose’s office explained how the scenarios were developed and subsequently revised, and apologized for some errors made in drafting the revised versions. Several of the scenarios showed revetment across the front of the park where it was not intended to be. This has been corrected.

We ran out of time to break into small groups to review the scenarios adequately. We agreed to convene the small groups at a different time. The following times were set: Small Group #1 (Members from the first part of the alphabet by last name) will meet on Wednesday, March 24th and Small Group #2 (Members from the last part of the alphabet) will meet on Friday, April 2, 2004. Both meetings will be held in the afternoon. Anyone unable to attend their assigned meeting should let the facilitators know as soon as possible.

Susan Rose addressed the group and encouraged them to remain open to new ideas and solutions. The Board of Supervisors is looking to the group to help design the future for the park/beach. She encouraged members not to remain entrenched in their views, lose trust or become defensive.

Review Meeting Dates/Topics

The next meeting date was set for Thursday, April 22, 2004. [Note: Later changed to April 29th]