November 21, 2004: Headlines: COS - Colombia: Congress: National Parks: Environment: San Luis Obispo Tribune: Sam Farr makes a proposal a proposal to designate the Monterey Ranger District of Los Padres National Forest as the Big Sur National Forest

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Colombia: Special Report: Sam Farr: Sam Farr: Archived Stories: November 21, 2004: Headlines: COS - Colombia: Congress: National Parks: Environment: San Luis Obispo Tribune: Sam Farr makes a proposal a proposal to designate the Monterey Ranger District of Los Padres National Forest as the Big Sur National Forest

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Sam Farr makes a proposal a proposal to designate the Monterey Ranger District of Los Padres National Forest as the Big Sur National Forest

Sam Farr makes a proposal a proposal to designate the Monterey Ranger District of Los Padres National Forest as the Big Sur National Forest

Sam Farr makes a proposal a proposal to designate the Monterey Ranger District of Los Padres National Forest as the Big Sur National Forest

A tribune exclusive report

A community's way of life at risk

David Sneed

The Tribune

BIG SUR - Stan Russell is on the Big Sur Chamber of Commerce's board of directors, maintains the organization's Web page and answers its phone.

He does it all from Santa Cruz because he cannot find an affordable place to live in Big Sur. Russell is a symbol of a growing crisis that some say is threatening to destroy Big Sur as a functioning community.

Because Big Sur is considered a national scenic treasure, public agencies and conservation organizations have been busily buying up just about every piece of property they can acquire and preserving it as parkland or open space. At the same time, wealthy investors are purchasing existing houses for use as vacation homes.

"It's impossible to buy land in Big Sur unless you are extremely wealthy," said Russell, who moved to Big Sur in 1997 but lost his apartment in 2003.

"A super-rich person comes in and buys a house and suddenly the guest house is no longer available for worker housing," he added. "The locals are being squeezed out."

As a result, the character of Big Sur has changed, said Bob Cross, who has sold real estate there for 30 years.

"The concept of Big Sur resident as caretaker, artist and poet is being ruled out," he said.

The situation has so alarmed some area residents that they are beginning to speak out. Jeanie Ford, a third-generation Big Sur resident, worries that federal land purchases amount to a takeover.

"I'd like to see my grandchildren have the same property that my grandparents had," she said. "I just want to make sure the community is protected."

[Excerpt]

Takeover fears

Mistrust of the government dates to the 1970s when Sen. Alan Cranston, Rep. Leon Panetta and others pushed to have Big Sur turned into a national park or designated a national seashore.

Residents were able to thwart that proposal, Caplin said. They are now alarmed by a proposal from Big Sur's current congressman, Democrat Sam Farr, to designate the Monterey Ranger District of Los Padres National Forest as the Big Sur National Forest.

They are concerned that a new national forest is the first step in another effort to federalize Big Sur.

The proposal is nothing so sinister, Farr said.

More than 90 percent of the district is designated as wilderness. Grazing is the only commercial use.

"Essentially, you have a region that is dedicated to passive recreational use," Farr said. "Why not create a national forest that is dedicated to ecosystem management?

"You could do it very cheaply by just changing the name. It could include Fort Hunter Liggett and the Hearst Ranch as in-holdings."

Federalization fears were renewed in 2002 when the Forest Service purchased the 1,200-acre Brazil Ranch, just south of the Bixby Bridge at the northern end of Big Sur. The ranch lies well outside the historic boundaries of the forest, and critics accuse the Forest Service of inappropriately enlarging the size of Los Padres.

District Ranger John Bradford said purchases enlarging the footprint of a forest are rare but allowed under federal rules. The agency plans to turn the ranch into an environmental education center modeled after the Pinchot Institute in Milford, Pa., and has formed a nonprofit group to oversee the effort.

"We saw a real opportunity to create something out here in the West that hasn't been done before," Bradford said.

No buying spree

The Forest Service and state parks department deny that they are on a wholesale buying spree in Big Sur. Both agencies have policies that give acquisition of isolated pockets of private land within the forest the highest priority followed by lands with high recreational and wildlife habitat potential.

The Forest Service has turned down offers to acquire land that does not meet these criteria, Bradford said.

"We are certainly not trying to run anybody out of Big Sur," he said. "We only work with willing sellers and we are not working with just anybody who walks through the door. We don't want to be overbearing."

The fact that all public land acquisitions are done by willing buyers and sellers will make the continuing shrinkage of private land in Big Sur difficult to stop, Potter said.

Also unlikely to stop is the controversy of the buying of Big Sur.

"The willing seller/willing buyer argument, I believe, is misleading," Caplin said. "If the Forest Service targeted the city of Carmel, the day would come that they would own it -- all from willing sellers."

David Sneed covers environmental issues for The Tribune. E-mail story ideas and comments to him at dsneed@thetribunenews.com





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Story Source: San Luis Obispo Tribune

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Colombia; Congress; National Parks; Environment

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