Santa Margarita Area Residents Together
PO BOx 50
Santa Margarita, CA 93453
History of Santa Margarita Area Residents Together
1986 - SMART (Santa Margarita Area Residents Together) was formed as a grass roots group of local residents concerned about the future development of the Santa Margarita Ranch. SMART served both as an educational resource and an action taking organization by holding regular meetings, hosting community forums, sending out various newsletters and mailings, all with the goal of achieving as much preservation of the ranch as possible.
1995 - Some members of SMART ( though SMART was not given an official position) were involved with other community members in mediation sessions with the ranch owners that brought about a controversial negotiated settlement. This resulted in the developer agreement in Oct. of 1995 between the ranch owners and San Luis Obispo County. This developer’s agreement was finalized in Feb. of 1998, and subsequently was interpreted and written by the county into the the General Plan language in an attempt to outline what the top limits of development on the ranch would be. It must be noted that unanimous consensus was never reached.
1998 - SMART filed a lawsuit against the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors predevelopment approval based on the argument that it was an unfair business practice to approve any development prior to any environmental impact assessments. SMART also felt that the final agreement went beyond what the community members felt they were agreeing to. The judge ruled against SMART’s arguments and the upheld the General Plan language.
1999 - SMART was the lead organizer in helping to form CPR (Coalition to Preserve the Ranch). CPR was made up of 15 local environmental and community groups whose goal was to attract conservation groups interested in preserving the ranch by buying up the development rights. SMART spearheaded this effort by publishing a “Proposal for Preservation” and with the support of the other groups involved did indeed attract some conservation interest. Unfortunately, when the ranch owners were not willing to give up on their vineyard meaningful negotiations to preserve the entire ranch ended unsuccessfully.
In October of 2002 SMART filed for a temporary restraining order to halt the deep ripping operation that was to be done in preparation of vineyard planting. After initially being upheld, it was overturned a couple of days later.
2000 - SMART assisted the local Chumash Council in a suit against the ranch owners that resulted in a requirement that a representative for the Chumash tribe be present at the site when ripping occurred so that any archeological finds would be observed and dealt with properly.
2001-2002 - SMART filed appeals and a lawsuit concerning county decisions on lot line adjustments proposed by the ranch owners. Our arguments were based on the fact that these adjustments made it easier for the ranch owners to sell separate parcels, and made it more difficult to do holistic planning on the ranch.
SMART also appealed proposed lot line adjustments of Margarita Farms, a tract of the ranch that did not fall under the developer’s agreement of 1998. SMART discovered a flawed traffic study which led to a compromise agreement which resulted in a precedent setting legal settlement. In this settlement the ranch owners were allowed to go forward with the Margarita Farms development but agreed to do a full biological assessment of the ranch, and to do a programatic EIR that disclosed all possible development plans for the ranch with it’s next proposed project. SMART also received a 50, 000 dollar donation from the ranch owners which paid for all the legal costs incurred to this date, and was guaranteed an official position during the scoping of the programmatic EIR. The legal settlement in fact called for a mutual agreement between SMART and the ranch owners regarding the scoping issue.
2003-2004 SMART participated in a number of scoping meeting with the ranch owners, and the county. SMART also attended community meeting concerning this issue. We gave regular feedback during the Notice of Preparation process, and also gave feedback on the Requests for Proposals that the county received from environmental consultants.
SMART also filed a suit to prohibit certain language changes in the Ag and Open Space Ordinance which could have potentially quadrupled building entitlements on Ag Cluster projects. Since we had such a strong case, the county legal counsel has proposed a settlement to us that would put the old language back in place.
2005- SMART currently is working on the Ag and Open Space settlement with the county, and remains a watchdog to the planning process with regards to any future development of the ranch. With the EIR for an Ag Cluster, and the future development scenario now in the works, SMART continues to correspond with the county, the EIR consultants, and the ranch owners all in an effort to minimize the amount of development that will take place.
It should be noted that SMART has raised more than $20, 000 strictly from individual contributions of community members. SMART also was given a $50,000 donation by the ranchowners as part of the 2002 legal settlement. This donation went to paying off the legal expenses involved in that suit and settlement procedure.