Peace Breaks Out Between Bike Lane and Palm Trees on Modoc Road

County of Santa Barbara and Land Trust Reach Deal on Modoc Multi-Use Path

Santa Barbara County Public Works, La Cumbre Mutual Water Company Board Directors, MOVE Santa Barbara County, Land Trust of Santa Barbara County, Supervisor Capps and Chris Henson, and Alex Rodriguez, President of La Cumbre Mutual Water Company | Credit: Courtesy Laura Capps

The long-festering dispute between bike lane advocates and defenders of the iconic Canary palms lining Modoc Road officially ended this week with the County of Santa Barbara agreeing to record a conservation easement over 35 acres of undeveloped land it owns by More Mesa in the Land Trust for Santa Barbara County’s name. The Land Trust holds a conservation easement on the 27-acre land preserve on which a new multi-modal bike lane — 4,000 feet long — will be built.

The agreement, signed off on this week by the Board of Supervisors, now unlocks the door to $5.4 million in state construction grants for which the bike lane has already qualified. The proposed bike lane — which bike advocates describe as a key missing link in the South Coast’s network of bike lanes — encroaches on the Land Trust easement over land that cannot legally be developed. Because a bike lane qualifies as development, the Land Trust needs to sign off on the deal. For that to happen, it had to reap a net increase in open space. This deal does that and then some; in exchange for permission to build the new bike lane on less than one — .38 acres, to be precise — of the 27 acres of the existing Modoc Road land preserve, the Land Trust will get 35 new acres of undeveloped land abutting More Mesa, by any reckoning a prime location. (No housing has been proposed for this site.)

When news of the bike lane first surfaced three years ago, abruptly and suddenly, neighborhood residents came unglued over the large number of trees — 63 — initially slated for removal. Included in that proposal were 29 Canary palms that are located on a road easement owned by Santa Barbara County. Under the final terms hammered out, 35 trees will be removed instead. Of those, three are “junior” Canary palms. Eight are eucalyptus, nine are live oaks, and 15 qualify as “other.” The new bike lane will be paved according to standards set by the Americans with Disabilities Act, making the new lane accessible to walkers, runners, strollers, rollers, bikes, and e-bikes, according to Supervisor Laura Capps, whose office helped broker a peace deal in what seemed to be an intractable conflict among environmentally minded activists of only slightly different persuasions.