SHORT
TERM GOALS:
Our
short-term goal at SOROG is to
protect the buffer between Santa Rosa Valley and Thousand Oaks by
stopping the proposed development (HPD 2002-80, LD 249) from building
four large, luxury, custom homes. We will accomplish this by
establishing this area as 100% open space. This will prevent any human
encroachment from occurring, now and in the future in this section of
the Ring Of Green and the south wall of the Santa Rosa Valley
(Andalusia
Road area). Thousand Oaks
Ring of Green is part of a critical wildlife movement path
that
begins at the west end of the Santa Monica Mountains goes through the
Western Plateau, the Hill Canyon wetlands habitat and Wildwood
Park then
via the Mountclef Ridge on to
the Santa Susana Mountains and finally to the Angeles and Los Padres
National Forests.
Description
of Project Area
LD 249
represents a group of
undeveloped private lots (26 acres) in the middle of the northern
portion of Thousand Oak’s Ring of Green. These lots were
documented and zoned before
the City of Thousand Oaks incorporated. They
are zoned Hillside Planned Development
requiring some restrictions for
building homes. However, it must be
assumed that these four lots were zoned for building not knowing the
extent of today’s
development up to this ridgeline creating a “choke point” across the
wildlife
corridor.
This
wildlife corridor has been documented in several studies as a habitat
linkage. The first is “Critical Wildlife Corridor/Habitat Linkage
Areas between The Santa
Susana
Mountains, the Simi Hills and the Santa Monica Mountains” by Paul
Edelman,
Ecologists, currently of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.
This was written for an international agency,
the
Nature Conservancy, dated 1990/91.
Also it was identified in the
Missing
Linkages Study and Conference in the year 2000 as part of Area 19.
It is described as a “Choke Point”. It in turn was ranked 10 out
of 10-the
highest priority for the State of California to preserve. It
scored 4 out 5 for conservation
opportunity and 5 out 5 for severe threat to wildlife movement.
The threat is urbanization. 85% of our
southern California linkages are threatened by urbanization. We
have to stop this statistic.
In addition, the University of Florida has just completed the first
controlled experiment of wildlife corridors versu isolated
habitats. The experiment prove that the theory that wildlife
corridors are effective in the continued existence of native plants and
animals whereas isolated habitats and parks had increased extinction
rates.
LONG
TERM GOALS:
SOROG
intends to protect any other vulnerable sections of the Ring of Green
from human encroachment by pressuring the City of Thousand Oaks and
bordering cities to continually abide by their General Plan containing
Ridgeline Protection Policies, Open Space Policies and Conservation
Policies with updates and modifications that strengthen wildlife
protection.
