(no subject)

[arethinn]

New redwood park in Santa Cruz Mountains could come from Beall law

Clearing the way for what could potentially be the biggest open space deal in the Santa Cruz Mountains in years, Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday signed a bill that would streamline the sale of up to 6,500 acres of land owned by San Jose Water Company and to become a public open space preserve.

The bill would allow the sale of the land — which includes 1,100 acres of redwood forests and could easily eclipse $30 million in price — to the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District without approval from the state Public Utilities Commission. The commission regulates San Jose Water, and its processes are often bureaucratic and slow-moving.

Talks are still in the very early stages.

(http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/09/28/new-redwood-park-in-santa-cruz-mountains-could-come-from-beall-law/)

I'm wouldn't call this a "new redwood park" as it sounds like they want to add the land to Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve, and most of the parcels form an irregular shape along the edge of that park, but I suppose you could call it "new redwood park-land".

Comments

[andros_b]

\o/ (possible Mythicalia site?)

[arethinn]

Mm, I doubt it. Sierra Azul is a day-use-only park. Only one of the 24 preserves managed by Midpeninsula Open Space District offers camping. Even if they consider establishing camping in the new areas, it would take quite some time for development of the campsites if it were allowed. And the result wouldn't likely be much different from similar parks we've been to like Big Basin, Huddart, and Memorial, so if there even were group sites, you've got the same problem of being stuck together in a small area totally surrounded by The Public. (I don't know if the "book all the family sites on a cul de sac" approach would have really worked out since that year had to be cancelled.)

The real problem is lack of interest from enough local people. If you have interest you can make a suboptimal site work, even while you hope for a better. But in that case we could just go to one of the existing parks. That was the point of restarting the SF Bay meetup, but it hasn't actually worked in terms of drumming up enough people who are up for this kind of event.

[andros_b]

Ah. Yes, the Public must be avoided. And I take your point about the lack of interest. Maybe once I get out there...