Development and the California tiger salamander can be good neighbors - at least according to an environmental impact report prepared for a Santa Maria Public Airport project.

The city of Santa Maria is seeking public input on a draft environmental document for the long-awaited Santa Maria Public Airport Business Park.

Comments on the lengthy report - it measures about 1.5 inches thick - are being accepted until 5 p.m. Jan. 22 by the Community Development Department.

Copies of the document are available at the city's Web site http://www.ci.santa-maria.ca.us/

3064.html.

Plans to develop a business park on Santa Maria Public Airport property have been in the works for more than a decade but have been held up because some of the proposed land is home to the federally protected California tiger salamander.

The current report spells out how development will affect the environment and shows what measures must be taken to allow the park and the amphibian to coexist.

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After hard negotiations, officials with the airport and U.S. Fish and Wildlife came to an agreement over how to develop the land, said airport General Manager Gary Rice.

The results of that verbal agreement were solidified with the November issuance of a fish and wildlife biological opinion, Rice said. In turn, the appropriate mitigation measures are included in the business park specific plan EIR.

Taking into account the salamander habitat, the business park and golf course project has been scaled back from its original 1,095-acres proposal to 740 acres.

The negotiated plan includes 16.3 acres of commercial professional office building, 132 acres of light manufacturing, 262.3 acres of recreational open space and 105 acres of conservation open space for the salamander's habitat.

“The first requirement (federal officials) came up with was almost a deal killer,” Rice said.

Federal officials initially wanted a 2,200-foot radius around each of the vernal pools, which are important to the salamander's reproduction, Rice said. With nine ponds, two of major importance, the radii would have almost been touching and thereby stopping all chance of development.

But through negotiations, Rice says, the two sides were able to come to an agreement on reduced radii. Additionally, by moving the locations of some proposed buildings and adjusting the golf course, development plans could continue.

This isn't the first environmental review of the project. Due to several changes and delays, other studies were conducted in the early 1990s.

Malia Spencer can be reached at 739-2219 or mspencer@santa

mariatimes.com.

January 2, 2007