Thank you again for taking the time to meet with University representatives on October 6, 2000. The purpose of our meeting was to identify whether there might be a set of mutually acceptable circulation improvements that would facilitate your development objectives for a hotel project while protecting the State's long-term interest in maintaining freeway access to the UC Santa Barbara campus. We found the meeting very informative and useful. It is our understanding, that although you have not filed applications for your project, you consider a southbound off-ramp from Route 217 to the frontage road at Ekwill to be essential for project feasibility. By contrast, you stated that access to northbound Route 217 from your project is not required as long as there is reasonably convenient access to north-bound Route 217/south-bound Route 217 in the vicinity of your project's location. Furthermore, you stated that although the Route 217 improvements proposed by the County are not critical to your hotel project, you would be concerned if the hotel's mitigation obligations were increased from the level that would otherwise be required if the County implements its proposed Route 217 improvements.

We were encouraged by our discussion and look forward to continuing to work with you to identify improvements to area circulation that facilitate redevelopment activities without the need to impair Route 217's function to provide freeway access to the UC Santa Barbara campus. We believe that the process of implementing these improvements could be best expedited in the interest of all parties if we take the time to develop a thoughtful joint recommendation for the California Transportation Commission's environmental review and consideration.