Posted on 01/12/2007 6:05:03 PM PST by calcowgirl
About 32,000 acres of oak-studded woodlands in South County, including land that is home to endangered species such as the gnatcatcher and the arroyo toad, will be set aside as a nature reserve, federal wildlife authorities announced Thursday.
Environmental officials have worked for more than a dozen years to preserve the foothills east of Mission Viejo, San Juan Capistrano and San Clemente, cities that have had high growth in recent years.
The deal would allow several major construction projects to move forward on land adjacent to the reserve, including a controversial plan to build as many as 14,000 homes on the brushland south of Mission Viejo.
The reserve would include land deeded by the county and Rancho Mission Viejo, which is planning the housing development. It would be the second major chunk of undeveloped acreage in Orange County to be preserved.
Last year, much of the old Irvine Ranch, which stretches from the foothills to the ocean, was dedicated as a 37,000-acre national landmark.
(snip)
Under the plan, 32,818 acres will be designated as a reserve to protect species such as the California gnatcatcher, arroyo toad and San Diego fairy shrimp. Also included in the reserve are vegetation such as coastal sage-scrub, chaparral and oak woodlands.
In part, the land was mitigation for two major county projects in the area — the completion of the 1,530-acre Prima Deschecha Landfill and extension of La Pata Road, he said.
The last holdings of the O'Neill and Moiso families, the land stretches from the southern end of Coto de Caza to Camp Pendleton in San Diego County and from the Cleveland National Forest border in the Santa Ana Mountains to San Juan Capistrano.
The area includes acres of agricultural and cattle-grazing land, and cement quarries and silica mines.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Kalifornia should start extracting the energy in some way from all the fires that these vast 'habitats' produce!!
I hate to say it, but good. OC needs SOME NON-CANYON LAND UNDEVELOPED. EVEN A SMIDGEN. This is from a former Huntington Beach boy.
Rancho Mission Viejo
http://www.ranchomissionviejo.com/history/history.php
Last year's 37,000 acres of Irvine Ranch wasn't enough?
Do you have any idea of how much of the state is already owned by Government?
Where The OC is smart... Lost Angeles is stupid!
They do,...it's called Baja.
What they don't emphasize is, in exchange for this setting aside of land, the deal is, the developer gets to build 14,000 homes on areas that are NOT set aside for wilderness. The traffic in this area is atrocious as it is and I can't imagine another 14,000+ cars, most of which are trying to get to the 5 freeway during rush hour.
I used to live in CA, and what I don't understand is why the zoning is always for residences. Building mixed use zones, where people can live, work and shop without endless freeway travel makes more sense to me.
But that wasn't the way it was in CA.
Also, reserving land by keeping it from being "developed" helps hold up prices for property that already is developed. A good example of this is in Marin County which is on the north side of San Francisco bay. A very large portion of the entire county is off limits to development.
46% of California is owned by either the federal or state governments. This 46% also includes agricultural preserves, land that can only be used for agriculture and
never allowed to be developed.
Oh no! There goes a major source of Cali protein.
Thanks. I hadn't researched the current numbers. I knew it was BIG. And that doesn't include the conservancies that are not government owned, but have superimposed some non-governmental body to oversee and regulate its use (the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, covering 1/5 of the states lands, comes to mind).
I wonder if the folks who support open-space, nature preserves, conservancies, and the like, realize they are supporting socialist and communist principles.
It will help my real estate investments!
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