Citizens for the Carpinteria Bluffs Announce ARB Hearing
City of Carpinteria Architectural Review Board Hearing for the Bluffs Resort Project, titled “The Carpinteria Farm, Hospitality and Residential Project,” is scheduled for Thursday, January 25 at 5:30 pm at Carpinteria City Hall.
This meeting will be attended by the Citizens for the Carpinteria Bluffs, which is seeking an all-out community support effort to stop the 27.5-acre resort project being slated by an out-of-town developer, whose application was “accepted as complete in early December 2023.” That developer would be architect Matthew Goodwin, a Cal Poly SLO graduate who grew up in Ventura. Goodwin has been involved in a number of development projects in California, and is now a partner with Christopher Carlin inCarp Bluff; the LLC that purchased the Bluffs One parcel in 2021.
The proposed resort will take out the Tee Time driving range, an organic farm, and acres of natural open space, from the Harbor Seal Overlook to Carpinteria Avenue. The usual safety brake in these types of proposals almost always includes an “affordable housing” element; the inevitable caveat that weighs on every developer’s project. What do the blueprints actually foresee for the one parcel of land that the Citizens for the Carpinteria Bluffs have not found a way to purchase and thus protect? The developers’ proposal on the table is categorized as a luxury resort project, with 56 buildings totaling 178,000 square feet, with two large hotel lodges (59 keys), 40 bungalows, a restaurant, spa, two pools, an events center, and 41-unit apartment complex of 1-, 2-, and 3-bedroom apartments.
This project last raised its unwanted head in Carpinteria as recently as 2022. Back then, the project’s principal planner – Laurel Fisher Perez of Suzanne Elledge Planning and Permitting Services, Inc. – presented the conceptual design with property owner and project applicant Matthew Goodwin of Carp Bluff, LLC. That 2022 effort was shot down by Carpinteria residents at a self-regulatory organization (SRO) town meeting. Other attempts to develop that area are said to date all the way back to 1960. There were issues as well with the developers’ most recent presentation having used in their promotional materials – and without permission – a photograph from the Citizens for the Carpinteria Bluffs website, taken by then president Ted Rhodes. Ironically, the Rhodes photo was originally used on a poster that promoted preserving the bluffs. Goodwin has not gone away. He and his business partner Carlin, who lives in Ojai, have created a website proposing and pushing their narrative on the Carpinteria project, citing as precedent their past project Malibu Surfrider, which they boast combines wine, craft beer, and regional farm-informed food and drink.
Patrick Crooks, the Citizens for the Carpinteria Bluffs president, issued a media statement this week that invokes the local sentiment: “We think there is no good reason to allow massive development on the Carpinteria Bluffs. This type of luxury resort, spa, restaurant, and destination events center immediately adjacent to a nature preserve represents the opposite of thoughtful community planning. Considerate planning respects compatibility with neighboring uses and protects our coastal resources, and we don’t see those principles honored with a proposal to bring so much construction and commercial activity to the Carpinteria Bluffs.”
In her October 18, 2023 editorial in the Coastal View News, Julia Mayer – Carpinteria resident and owner of Dune Coffee Roasters – wrote this; “The fact that the Carpinteria bluffs are, in the city’s own general plan’s words, the last remaining coastal open space within Santa Barbara County, should be the only sentence needed to stop this development from moving forward.” She also quotes from Carpinteria’s General and Local Coastal Plan. “The Carpinteria Bluffs are a key community gateway to both Carpinteria and the county, as well as a critical factor in the overall character of the city (…) lt has long been a community goal to avoid piecemeal development of the bluffs, and to ensure that future developments within the bluffs area complement each other.”
Citizens for the Carpinteria Bluffs points out its past successful efforts to preserve the Carpinteria Bluffs Nature Preserve and Viola Fields in 1998, and the Rincon Bluffs Preserve in 2018 – these in partnership with the Land Trust for Santa Barbara County. “In October 2000, the Land Trust and Citizens for the Carpinteria Bluffs completed negotiation to turn the property over to the City of Carpinteria to own and manage it as an open space preserve. The Land Trust holds a conservation easement on the property, limiting development on the Bluffs to walking trails, a bikeway, and a six-acre area for soccer and baseball fields.”
We can only wonder, what will January 25th hold for the present and future of Carpinteria? Check the links in the 411 for all sides of this important issue.
411: https://carpinteriabluffs.org
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