The art — and environment — of the deal:
One of the world’s oldest living organisms gets a protected environment, a native tribe gets 30 acres of land and a developer gets a go-ahead to build 1,700 homes under a recent deal approved by an Inland Empire city.
The development by Irvine-based Richland Communities is planned about one-tenth of a mile from the Jurupa Oak, which looks more like a shrub than a tree, and is believed to be more than 13,000 years ago, based on studies by the University of California-Riverside, the Los Angeles Times reported. The 30-acre swath surrounding the tree in the Inland Empire municipality of Jurupa Valley will be given to the Kizh Nation of the Gabrieleño Band of Mission Indians, whose members will take on responsibility for its protection and preservation.
“We understand the Jurupa Oak’s significance and have always been committed to its preservation,” Brian Hardy, a representative of Richland Communities, said in a statement issued to the publication after the 3-2 vote by the Jurupa Valley City Council.
The new deal “will provide protection that doesn’t exist now or in the previously approved project,” according to Hardy.
The project had gotten a green light from the city of about 100,000 people in Riverside County, about 50 miles east of Los Angeles, but that got rolled back when objections cropped up over speculation by some scientists and others over damages the development could do to the tree nearby.
The project calls for the construction of almost 1,700 homes, and a light industrial park. A coalition of environmental groups has expressed concerns that additional pavement could bring a “heat-island effect” and interrupt natural water resources to oppose a threat to the tree, which is about 6 feet tall with a network of branches, stems and roots that spread over a radius of 30 feet or so from its base.
Back-and-forth claims supported by various levels of research continue, with no agreement on what the development means for the tree in environmental terms.
The lack of a definitive understanding has left the coalition that aims to preserve the tree pushing the City of Jurupa Valley to trim back the industrial portion of the development.
That effort comes in the wake of a recently passed state law that places new restrictions on warehouses — a hot segment of the industrial real estate market that counts the Inland Empire as a major hub.
Richland Communities was founded by Jack Bray and is run by his son Matt Bray. SInce the 197s, it has controlled more than 100,000 acres of land worth more than $4 billion, according to its website.