Coyote Hills Development – What’s Next?

After years of passionate debate, the development of West Coyote Hills seems to be moving forward. If all goes according to plan, a series of public hearings before various commissions will lead up to a final approval by City Council in October.

Nearly a decade of intense activism has paid off, and the group Friends of Coyote Hills has forced some serious compromises from the development plans of Pacific Coast Homes (a subsidiary of Chevron). The plan has been reduced to 760 homes with 352 acres set aside as “open space,” including the 72-acre Robert E. Ward Nature Preserve on the east end.

naturepreserve
Where does "The Preserve" end and the "Robert E Ward Nature Preserve" begin? What's the difference?

The Friends of Coyote Hills still aren’t happy, but it is doubtful that they will be able to accomplish their ultimate goal – using the heavy hand of government to devalue the property and then spending tax dollars to buy the entire 510 acres and set it aside as a park and preserve.  A lack of funds and the commercial wheels of progress have run over that idea, whether it was righteous or not.

Of course, any group of concerned citizens would be wise to pore over every last detail in the volumes of documents submitted for this project. History shows that city staff, commissioners and council are incapable of conducting enough forward-looking due diligence on their own, especially on a project of this scale. Any and every question should be brought up to the relevant commissions. Ambiguous answers should not be accepted from anyone. Decision-makers must be held accountable for ensuring that expensive surprises do not hit taxpayer wallets down the road.

There is an informational meeting on the Coyote Hills project at 7:00 pm on July 8th at the Senior Center. Anyone who is interested should attend.

8 Replies to “Coyote Hills Development – What’s Next?”

  1. Please– love what you’re trying to do, but recent posts with misspellings and poor choice of words (that don’t mean what you’re trying to say) are undermining your credibility, thus your message. You should probably hire a proofreader to catch errors such as the following in this very post re West Coyote Hills:
    “open space”, should be “open space,”
    concerened should be concerned
    pour should be pore
    dilligence should be diligence

    and look to other posts, such as that about the Fox:
    there’s a big difference between “inculpate” and “inculcate”

  2. Okay, thanks. I made my point and you made the corrections, except for “pore.” Now please take down my proofreading comment right away, it’s distracting from your message.

  3. anonymous, volunteer your proof reading ( can we argue proof-reading ?) skills to this worthy blog

  4. Interesting. Just north of us, the citizens of La Habra Heights did a lot more to preserve open space and they had far fewer resources. They started as a small group of upstarts, intelligent and resourceful, and the net result is the large open space nature area at the end of the old Fullerton Road. People went door to door, the pushed out mailers put together on Tom Higg’s kitchen table, they fought like hell. Comparatively, I have never found the same organization or push from Fullerton residents, beyond the large sign on Euclid and Bastanchury.

  5. The movie “There Will Be Blood” was adapted from the 1927, muckraking Upton Sinclair novel “Oil”. This movie has a scene where the protagonist brags about the wealth he has gained from his oil wells drilled in Coyote Hills. He then says his oil wells will make this desert bloom. Casting aside sinclair’s cynicism, he saw the future. Oil did turn this desolate desert into a thriving city. I object to my tax dollars subsidizing the silly romanticists who make up the friends for coyote hills movement. why should tax payers have to support the aesthetic values of a select group of people with big mouths.

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