Undeveloped Areas as Places of Respite

Development in the Foothill-Trabuco area will affect many more people than the families who live there. Live Oak Canyon Road, with its natural canopy of oak trees, O’Neill Regional Park, the pristine canyons and ridgelines have long served as places of respite from the stresses and strains of urban life for all Orange Countians.

Now, more than ever, with open space everywhere rapidly diminishing, such sanctuary is sorely needed. An arterial highway on Rose Canyon Road to serve proposed residential development, massive church complexes, shopping centers and housing tracts will destroy that sanctuary irretrievably. This from the county’s environmental impact report.

A recent issue of The Times business section quoted a prominent travel guide’s description of Orange County (“Guidebooks Take Different Views on Good and Bad of Travel in O.C.”) as a place “divided and subdivided . . . filled with cookie-cutter copies; gas stations on every corner, supermarkets on every block and other necessities of life provided at more malls, plazas, squares, centers and markets than any real city could handle.”

We hope our public officials will have enough pride to cause us to be portrayed in the future as “the county that had the courage to call a halt and preserved a place of natural beauty for the communion of all its citizens.”

JEAN WINTERFELT

Conservation Committee Chair, Orange County Group

Sierra Club