The Friends of Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve is a volunteer organization which has been protecting the preserve for more than 25 years. The Friends assist the city and county rangers through such activities as leading interpretive walks, performing wildlife and other scientific studies, removing invasive exotics and replanting with natives, installing kiosks, and coordinating Scout projects. Past scout projects have included building small bridges, installing interpretive signs, building and installing owl boxes, and restoring trails. The Board meets bi-monthly and welcomes new volunteers in any capacity.
Special Notice: 12/23/2011
Your Support Letters Needed Now
Mike Kelly, conservation chair
From our friends at San Diego Canyonlands Coalition we learn that our support is needed now to increase the protection of Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve, Black Mtn. Open Space Park, Del Mar Mesa Preserve, and other open space lands in San Diego. On January 11 a sub-committee of the City Council, the Rules Committee, will meet and vote on whether to Dedicate more than 1,000 acres in Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve and many thousands more city wide, totally about 10,000. Ideally you can write a letter of support for a yes vote on dedication to Mayor Sanders before January 5, when he is expected to decide his recommendation on the issue to the council committee.
Canyonlands has set up a form letter (link below) that will be automatically sent to Mayor Sanders and City Council members. It only takes about a minute to do. Please fill it out and forward the link to your group lists and your other friends. Please post this on your Facebook and social networking sites. Thank you for your prompt action and for all that you do for our wonderful canyons.
What does Dedication of City open space lands do? It increases the protection of the land as permanent open space. The parcels that make up our Preserve and others in San Diego were often deeded over to the City as exactions from Developments. Although intended to be spared development and maintained as open space there is no legal requirement to do that. The City Council can legally decide to sell off any of these parcels for development and make a windfall profit on land they got for free. But if the City Council or the State Legislature votes to formally Dedicate these parcels under the law, that gives the land a higher level of protection. After formal Dedication it takes a vote of two-thirds of the voting public to convert this land to non-park uses. Land that is simply “designated” (not “Dedicated”) as open space can be converted, transferred or sold with just five votes of the City Council. Five votes.
Now, the City Council does retain the right to grant easements for utility purposes across Dedicated property for utility purposes, including roads, sewer lines, drainage channels, etc. That’s a necessary “evil” we have to lift with.
The current proposal would refer any City of San Diego decision on Dedication as a recommendation to the State Legislature for Dedication, as was done in 2007 for some 6,600 acres. Although the City can do this process itself, they can save as much as $1 million by having State Senator Kehoe carry a bill through the legislature, a smart savings for the City.
Lastly, are we losing important flexibility when we “tie up” land like this with a 2/3rds vote to change its use? No, in the 1980s, a deverloper, Newland of Canada, approached the city and conservation groups with a proposed land swap. They coveted Dedicated land near the I-5 in what we now call Sorrento Hills. I think it was about 40 acres or so. They offered, in exchange, a parcel of 80 acres adjacent to the north of the waterfall in the Preserve and a $1 million fund for park projects in Rancho Peñasquitos and Black Mtn. Open Space Park. The Friends, the Sierra Club, the City, and others thought the deal made sense, a net gain for the park. We all supported it and the voters approved it by the necessary 2/3rds vote. What the 2/3rds vote signifies is that a consensus is needed in situations such as this, which is appropriate when deciding on the future of land desinated as permanent open space. The voterts approved the landwap handily. The swap proved to be beneficalfor the canyon, a good test of the higher protected statius of the land.
Mike Kelly
858-342-8856 mkelly1@san.rr.com
President, Kelly & Associates
President, San Diego Conservation Resources Network
conservation chair, Friends of los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve
