Arroyo Grande may intervene in sale of historic campground

It looks like the effort to “Save Camp Arroyo Grande” might be gaining some traction.

After several months of lobbying the City Council to take action to preserve a historic 131-year-old campground in the heart of Arroyo Grande, the city will finally discuss intervening in the sale of the property at its meeting Tuesday.

According to a city staff report, the city has negotiated an agreement with the property owners to give the city time to locate a buyer who would preserve the site, or at least relocate its historic 12-sided barn known as the Tabernacle.

“The Methodist Property is an extremely valuable asset to the community,” read the staff report. “Additionally, the City has reached out to the Land Conservancy, Camp Fire, other community members and groups, and neighboring jurisdictions regarding options for the purchase and preservation of the Campground and Tabernacle.”

The agreement would give the city until Dec. 31 to find a buyer or formulate a plan to relocate the Tabernacle. Property owner California-Pacific Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church (Cal-Pac) has said it will not demolish the Tabernacle as long as the agreement is in place.

For more than 130 years, people have ventured to Camp Arroyo Grande in the heart of the Village for summer and day camps, church retreats, school projects and a multitude of other local activities.

But now the 29-acre property is up for sale, worrying some who say the campground and Tabernacle will be demolished to make way for housing, businesses or other developments. A Cal-Pac representative told The Tribune in September that the decision to sell the property was made because of “reduced use and ongoing maintenance costs” at the site.

Cal-Pac has offered to donate the barn to the city, though Arroyo Grande would have to foot the bill for relocating it elsewhere.

To try to prevent it from being sold to a developer who would build on the land, several concerned citizens and groups, including Camp Fire Central Coast, which hosts an annual summer camp at the site, stepped forward to launch a “Save Camp Arroyo Grande” movement, aimed at preserving the campground.

The group is exploring either purchasing the property — though the hefty $3 million to $4 million price tag makes that highly unlikely — or finding an outside entity that would be willing to buy the campground and preserve it.

Camp Fire also has offered to maintain the property at its own expense if efforts to buy the site are successful.

The City Council will discuss approving the agreement at its meeting Tuesday at 6 p.m. in the South County Regional Center at 800 W. Branch St.

This story was originally published October 10, 2016 at 8:12 PM with the headline "Arroyo Grande may intervene in sale of historic campground."