Santa Barbara County delays final action on Recreation Master Plan after wide public input on trails, agriculture and CEQA

Santa Barbara County planning and parks staff on Jan. 14 presented draft land‑use and code changes tied to the county’s Recreation Master Plan and sought input on the programmatic environmental review.

At a workshop before the County Planning Commission, Jeff Lindgren, assistant director with the Parks Division, outlined three trail project types and proposed a streamlined permitting path for ‘low‑impact recreational’ trails that would allow either a zoning clearance or a land‑use permit in many cases. Lindgren said private projects built to U.S. Forest Service construction standards could avoid costly grading plans and reduce environmental risks, calling modern designs “hydrologically invisible” because they minimize erosion.

Staff also offered a concrete example: a proposed Guadalupe Community Park and Campground that could be delivered either as a county project or through a public–private partnership under the Recreation Benefit Project (RBP) program. Under the RBP model, private landowners could build and operate campgrounds while dedicating a sizeable sports‑park component to the county as a “substantial in‑kind public recreation contribution,” Lindgren said. He told commissioners staff expects to publish a public draft of the programmatic EIR in March if the commission narrows the project scope.

Why it matters: The RBP is the mechanism staff proposes to use to expand parks and trails without direct county funding. The draft permitting rules, incentive thresholds and the EIR’s scope will determine how much private land may be used for recreation, what activities…