The La Honda Voice

Group aims to make land public

By Mark Abramson, San Mateo Daily News
( http://www.sanmateodailynews.com/article/2006-12-20-smc-scc-transfer )

"Panoramic ocean views and sweeping vistas of forested ridges at the Driscoll Ranch are one step closer to being open for the public to enjoy.

The Peninsula Open Space Trust has announced that it transferred the 3,681-acre ranch to the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District. The trust bought the land outside the town of La Honda from the Driscoll family for $21 million in 2002 and paid the family over a three-year period, according to a press release.

Public funding from the California Coastal Conservancy and donations allowed the trust to transfer the land to the district earlier this month for a reduced price of $9 million, the release stated. The trust raised $6 million from its donors and the California Coastal Conservancy contributed another $6 million to transfer the land.

The 5.75-square-mile property along Highway 84 has been in the Driscoll family for three decades and it is one of the largest private tracts of undeveloped land on the Peninsula...

...The property is the biggest piece of land the trust has acquired for public use, according to the open space district. Its possible uses include horseback riding, mountain biking and hiking. And the land is home to animals, such as coyotes, mountain lions, domesticated horses and cattle and the threatened California tiger salamander and California red-legged frog...

The district plans to combine the ranch with the adjacent La Honda Creek Open Space Preserve to the north and create a preserve that spans 5,759 acres..."

Skeptics cut down YMCA logging plan

By Nick Casey--[ [email protected] ], Half Moon Bay Revie( http://www.hmbreview.com/articles/2006/12/12/news/local_news/story01.txt )

"A proposal to begin logging operations at Camp Jones Gulch in La Honda has become a public relations nightmare for property-owner YMCA of San Francisco.

Many La Honda residents fear that the nearby forest will be irreparably harmed by the long-term plan. More than 300 complaints are now filed with the California Department of Forestry - a stack reportedly three inches thick. And on Sunday, 200 people turned out to voice their opposition to the project as YMCA officials attempted, with limited success, to calm a growing storm.

"The reaction to this process was certainly a surprise to us," said Bill Worthington, YMCA vice president of property development.

At the root of the controversy is the YMCA's application for a non-industrial timber management plan, a much-revised, highly technical document known as an NTMP that could determine the fate of the forest for decades to come.

According to the YMCA, only 350 acres of forestland would be thinned. The reason for the management plan, Worthington said, was to decrease fire hazards and other safety risks in the educational camp used by hundreds of children and adults annually.

However, if approved by state forestry officials, the plan would allow the YMCA to significantly alter the full 904 acres of Jones Gulch for the construction of roads, the removal of tan oaks and brush, and the logging of up to 40 percent of trees over 18 inches in diameter...

...While the YMCA maintains that the purpose of Jones Gulch Camp is primarily recreational, those who have enjoyed the forest's splendor appear seduced by its natural beauty.

"That's the place I learned to love the Redwood trees," said Patty Mayall, who began attending the camp in the sixth grade. "What the YMCA taught me was to protect and value the forest. They've taught many other people the same lesson. If anything, the opposition is a testament to just what great work they did there."