Environmental Showdown

At some point, Southern California must decide whether every last fine natural area is going to be converted to houses, condos, office buildings, shopping malls and parking lots. A perfectly logical spot for making that decision, for drawing the line, is the Santa Rosa Plateau in southern Riverside County.

The 15,000-acre plateau in the Santa Ana Mountains south of Murrieta has been recognized by UNESCO as a biosphere reserve, one of three such special places in California. The Nature Conservancy has bought 3,100 acres for preservation. The plateau is one of California’s last intact enclaves of native grassland and Engelmann oaks. Mountain lions prowl the plateau and golden eagles nest there. Occidental College botany professor Jon Keeley told The Times’ Jenifer Warren: “This is not just a neat place; It is an extremely special place with ecological value that extends far beyond the Riverside County line.”

Developer Won Sang Yoo also believes Santa Rosa Plateau is a special place. He owns 3,855 acres there and wants to build a new community called Santa Rosa Springs. The development would include thousands of homes, commercial centers, schools and roads.

Yoo’s firm, Ranpac Communities, has gone to great lengths to plan the new town so it will blend into the unique environment. About 400 acres would be parks and golf courses, providing corridors for wildlife to roam. Only a handful of the 2,400 oak trees would be removed. Some 2,000 acres would remain as passive open space. This would be “a state-of-the-art project where people live as part of the natural environment,” said David Dillon, a Ranpac official.

Ranpac’s efforts are commendable. But the fact is, the plateau will remain natural and wild, or it will not. No amount of compromising, or of painting houses in earth tones, will overcome the impact of development. If the Santa Rosa Plateau is graded and paved, perhaps no other natural area in Southern California is safe. This is something the Riverside County Board of Supervisors must consider as it begins debating this week a proposed community plan that would determine what, if any, level of development is tolerable at Santa Rosa Plateau. The area’s supervisor, Walt Abraham, says the ideal would be purchase of the land for a regional park, but “I come from a world of reality, and we’re not made of money.”

But the question should be: Can Southern California really afford to squander what little is left of its precious natural heritage?