Category: Coyote Hills

If heart says anything about a cause this cause has heart. However, the hill to climb is steep (and expensive) . Tuesday late afternoon, I happened to be driving down Amerige when I came across a group of folks who were marching for a cause of saving Coyote Hills.

Great things happen over an al fresco meal of fresh veg accompanied by gin & tonic.
As we looked out over the valley, we remembered the time one would drive up Beach Blvd. and is soon as you hit Rosecrans, darkness would descend until you hit Imperial. There was nothing there. But of course, in the name of progress there are houses and apartments there now. Dusk was settling over La Habra Heights –a great thing to see since you can still see the hills. No home is allowed to build above the ridgeline. And then we talked about the work of a sainted few in faraway La Habra Heights, who saved a special place called Powder Canyon.

Which brought us to the issue of Coyote Hills and the small group of people who have been trying to get our attention with their hand painted signs on Euclid and Bastanchury. You see, they get no respect. Which is a painful thing because damn….they’ve been toiling for so freakin’ long.

But of course this is the problem. Because if you’re going to do work of this sort sometimes taking the meek respectable posture isn’t the way to go.

Sometimes you just have to be all out –well, “Heightsian” for lack of a more diplomatic word.

Seems to us that the problem with the whole Coyote Hills fandangle is that this sucker wasn’t put to bed long ago.

That’s right, a lack of vision has hindered what seems to us to be an obvious move.

Chevron has owned the land bordered by Beach, Rosecrans, Imperial and Euclid since before you or I were born. They have drilled, pumped, done research and in the process not only made money here, but also used the research to help make more money elsewhere.

Now, we could get rely on the spinal cord reaction and say “property owner’s rights to do whatever they damn well please,” but that’s not our style. When Chevron pulled out, they left behind a large parcel of undeveloped land behind what was then their research HQ.

Since the mid 1990’s, the area has been graded, millions of cubic yards of dirt have been moved and the result was not one, but at least three housing developments on Rosecrans, Beach, and Euclid, but also the addition of big outdoor shopping center.

So what we have in Fullerton is the very last parcel of undeveloped land. No orange groves have been planted –it’s pretty much in its natural state.

So we ask, why do they need to build more homes? Looking at the big picture, they’ve already built enough. And looking at our real estate ads, there are no shortage of homes for sale. It’s not the money. They get $40 bucks from us each time we fill up the tank. Multiply this by 4, that’s $160 a month. Then do that by twelve and yes, it’s Chevron easily can take in $1200 a year from on individual (since a lot of Fullertonians don’t take either the bus or the train).

Why not leave this last parcel of land as it is –for us to enjoy? What we say is…. no houses. We’re not willing to concede a single foot of that land to build more houses.

If you think this is outrageous, well, maybe it is. But what’s even more crazy is that a high percentage of people here have little connection to nature whatsoever. Their lives are drive, mall, mall, internet, mall, mall, restaurant, drive… oh what the hell.

Besides, after the development of all the lands around Bastanchury and Brea Boulevard, quite frankly ….we’re on the side of those two scrawny coyotes that come out every day at 4 p.m. looking for food and water.

Alas, we could have offered them gin and tonic. But we know better than that.

In her latest post, local blogger Cindy Cotter pointed out a notable trend at the various community and commission meetings for Coyote Hills development: the Save Coyote Hills crowd appears to be shrinking.

In the beginning of July an informational public meeting drew a boisterous crowd of 200. The next two commission meetings (where public voices are actually more important) drew only 75 and then 45 citizens. That is not the kind of showing that can stop a project with over 30 years of momentum. If these folks mean business, they need to get organized quickly.

On a related note, Pacific Coast Homes responded to our last post with an updated map that more clearly distinguishes the difference between “The Preserve” and the Robert E. Ward Nature Preserve. They’ve also promised to update the map on their own website, but at this point it’s still clear as mud. The co-mingling of the real preserve and the “open space” that surrounds it may not be the most honest communication effort, so hopefully they get it fixed quickly.