Press Room
Owners host second meeting on
Eagle Ranch
Atascadero News- Wednesday, Oct 1st, 2008
Written by Ellen Holland
Photo by Ellen Holland — Creston resident Kathe Hustace, left, participates in the instant poll during the second meeting to address the potential development of Eagle Ranch.
The owners of Eagle Ranch hosted a second community meeting to address the potential development of the historic property last week.
The gathering, which took place at the Pavilion on the Lake Thursday evening, mirrored the first meeting held in January and served as a way to introduce the proposal as it stands today.“These meetings are very early in the process for a project such as Eagle Ranch,” said ranch representative Victor Montgomery of RRM Design Group.
Owners of the ranch are currently in negotiations to place a permanent agricultural conservation easement on more than 3,000 acres of the 6,545-acre cattle ranch and plan to annex the balance into the city of Atascadero to make way for a housing development that could also include several other amenities including a hotel and small village center.
The proposal, which involves the clustered construction of 452 homes, comes in light of the fact that the ranch will be released from development constraints of the Williamson Act — a state law that provides owners of farmland and open space with tax relief in exchange for a 10-year agreement that the land will not be developed or otherwise converted to another use — in January 2009.
The ranch lies west of Highway 101 between Atascadero and Santa Margarita and is bordered by the southern portion of the city of Atascadero on the north and the Los Padres National Forest along much of its southern boundary. Founded in 1882 by Baron Henry Von Schroeder, who named the ranch after a pair of eagles he found nesting on a steep cliff near a waterfall on the property, Eagle Ranch is now owned by members of the Smith family, a longtime ranching family in Ventura County, as Eagle Ranch LLC.
In 1914 the portion of the ranch that is planned for development was subdivided into 452 lots by E.G. Lewis as part of the Atascadero Colony. The city of Atascadero identified Eagle Ranch as a future expansion area in the 2002 general plan update, and in 2003 the city also approved bringing Eagle Ranch within the city’s sphere of influence, a plan for Atascadero’s probable physical boundaries and service area.
The Atascadero City Council cast a unanimous vote in May that directed city staff to begin processing the application for the development. During Thursday’s meeting the ranch’s owners re-introduced their plan to cluster the 452 lots in an effort to preserve open space and create a project that would be compatible with the ranch’s existing use while remaining environmentally sensitive.
The new component of Thursday’s meeting was an instant poll exercise that invited attendees to cast a vote on questions concerning the ranch. The developers asked attendees to rate factors such as the importance of protecting wildlife, environmental and agricultural resources, open space and the maintenance of Atascadero’s rural look and feel while also trying to discover how the community feels about other elements of the proposal such as the potential inclusion of a resort area.
The results of the instant poll showed 42 percent of those present indicated that they lived in the area closest to the project, 62 percent indicated that slopes and ridgelines are very important, 53 percent said maintaining the view corridor from Highway 101 is very important and 73 percent said protecting wildlife and environmental resources is very important versus 38 and 33 percent who felt the preservation of agricultural resources was very important or important.
The preservation of open space was highly supported by 73 percent of those in attendance and 66 percent felt maintaining Atascadero’s rural look and feel is important.
The instant poll also showed that 79 percent of participants support the proposed cluster concept and 60 percent think a resort would be a desirable amenity.
In addition, the majority of those in attendance indicated they would like to see a majority of uses for a neighborhood commercial center, especially a restaurant or deli.
The results of the instant poll, which are posted on www.theeagleranch.com, also show those in attendance at the meeting support both a public park and trails on the ranch, but would be more willing to pay for the trails.
Atascadero resident Mike Harper attended both meetings on the ranch and said he continues to be concerned about the project in terms of traffic and potential light pollution. The instant poll, he said, was an aspect of the second meeting that contributed to the audience feeling they have more of a say in the proposal.
“For [the developers] to do this is very clever because people feel like they’re participating,” he said. “There’s good and bad [aspects of the project], but it is kind of sad in a way because that’s huge, it’s a huge piece of property.”
Atascadero resident Norma Thomas only attended the second meeting and said the proposal looked great.
“I think it’s great the more they keep it small,” she said. “The landscape is beautiful around there.”
For more information on the Eagle Ranch proposal, visit the project Web site, e-mail info@theeagleranch.com or call 543-1794.