Developer downsizes Ferrini Ranch proposal off Highway 68; lawsuit threats persist.

A half dozen cattle are mooing on a patch of stubbly yellow grass littered with cowpies, blocked from view by a berm. They’re grazing off Highway 68 near Toro Park, out of sight from the road, on a spot where developers plan to build hundreds of homes.

That’s according to the vision of developer Mark Kelton of Santa Monica-based Domain Corp., and builder Ray Harrod, Jr. of Harrod Construction Co. in Salinas.

Their proposed development, Ferrini Ranch, spans about 5 miles from San Benancio Canyon to River Road, with homes and roads wending through the oak-studded hills. They’re out here with a tattered map of project plans they first completed in 2005. The newest version shrinks the number of homes from 212 to 185 and reduces a proposed winery about 75 percent to 28,000 square feet.

“You can’t get much more open than what we’re proposing,” Harrod says.

Still, the sycamores near Toro Creek and the oaks higher up make for some challenging off-roading in Harrod’s gray pickup, Old Betsy. “This is really hard to get into without tearing up my truck,” he says, gunning up a steep hill.

A draft environmental impact report (EIR) detailing the project was first released last year. In response to public comment, county planners ordered sections on the impacts to air quality and biology to be revised and recirculated. The revised sections are now open to public comment through Aug. 18.

While the downsized version might address some neighbors’ concerns about their views, many remain opposed to other facets of the project.

LandWatch, which has opposed the project since the draft EIR was released in 2012, is asking supporters for donations with a future lawsuit in mind.

“LandWatch has been very active commenting on this project to provide standing for potential legal action should the project be approved,” reads an email to supporters.

The smarth-growth nonprofit’s biggest concerns are tapping the overdrafted Salinas Valley watershed and traffic. (The project calls for a new traffic light and four-laning along a mile of 68.)

Another issue: wildfire mitigation. The county’s 2010 Community Wildfire Protection Plan identifies the proposed development area as having moderate to high fire danger.

Looking at the chewed-down grass, Harrod says, “Grazing helps. It’d be a very slow burn coming up here.”

The county fire plan also calls for clearing vegetation from under and around houses, and recommends that property owners clear at least 100 feet from built structures “to create community-wide defensible spaces.”

The draft EIR for Ferrini Ranch doesn’t specifically include the fire protection plan – and the analysis of impacts to habitat doesn’t account for fire safety barriers around future homes.

“Their definition of fuel is absolutely everything,” says Julie Engell, a former member of the LandWatch board. She urged the county to prepare an EIR for the fire protection plan in 2010, but county officials demurred, deciding instead the plan would be applied to individual development projects.

“[The Ferrini Ranch draft EIR] came out, and guess what?” Engell says. “They didn’t plan for the level of clearing around roads and infrastructure and houses.”