After 15 years in the making, the group Save Mount Diablo successfully bought a $1.04 million conservation easement to forever protect 154 acres of open space on Mount Diablo’s North Peak this week.
The non-profit land trust initially signed a two-year option agreement with the Concord Mt. Diablo Trail Ride Association to provide ample time to raise funds for the legal agreement.
Before obtaining a conservation easement, the land was falling vulnerable to development. Save Mount Diablo said more than 15 houses and buildings were built near the now-conserved area. Now, any activities and development on the land will be restricted.
“This agreement will assure that future generations will be able to fully enjoy the natural beauty of this area of California without the threat of development. Save Mount Diablo took into consideration the history of our equine needs while sculpting the agreement,” Diane Jorgensen, a board member with the trail ride association, said in a statement.
The property is part of the “Missing Mile,” which is a privately owned piece of land surrounded by Mount Diablo State Park on three sides and adjacent to Save Mount Diablo’s Young Canyon and North Peak Ranch.
The property is also rich in biodiversity, mostly due to the unique geology of the main peaks, like the serpentine soils that foster rare plant species like the Mount Diablo globe lily.
“This agreement affords us the security of knowing that a beautiful piece of the mountain will be forever protected from urban development without sacrificing land ownership. The heritage of horses on Mt. Diablo can continue indefinitely. We are eternally grateful that Save Mount Diablo has been so supportive and patient, tirelessly navigating us through the entire process. I hope that other landowners will follow in our footsteps to protect their land too,” Elaine Baker, board president for the trail ride association, said in a statement.
photo credit: Ray Saint Germain
28 comments
A big thank you to everybody involved in the Save Mount Diablo group, and the hard work they put into saving a piece of nature’s beauty.
THANK YOU
SMD also was the primary organization that helped deny expansion of the Carnegie OHV park…. a fun recreation for families which are fewer and far between nowadays… SMD does some good – some bad …. imho
+1
Concord Mt. Diablo Trail Ride Association sold their property to Mt Diablo for cheap, but they still get a place to ride their horses. A dozen or so rich folks get their little ranches away from suburbia. The rest of us get a little more park land to wander around.
Uh, “rich folks” don’t live on that side of town. Those ranches are for the wannabe plebs that can’t hang in Lamorinda or Danville / Alamo.
Stupid. Build it out. Mt. diablo is ugly anyway. Acting like this is for anyone except the rich people who already got their house on the hill is lame. Keeping the riff raff out is so white privilege I don’t even know where to begin. Way to go lefties you just played yourself. The divide continues.
Try green eggs and ham. Begin there
I can’t. Dr Seuss was cancelled and permanently banned by you freaks.
I can see you are not a person who appreciates the natural beauty of the mountain. Preserving open space has nothing to do with white privilege. Only a woke leftist would say that. What a sad individual.
Wrong. You wokies cry so much about privilege and class, you should obviously know when the upper crust is making a power play on land. This ain’t about preserving nothing, it’s about controlling the available land. Which by the way has survived thousands if not millions of years without a small group of people dictating what can and can’t be done with it. Give it a few years the plans for that land will change when someone gets greedy. Meanwhile pick up all the masks polluting your precious mountain.
You just proved to the world that ignorance is bliss
Go to the park and enjoy the freedom of the outdoors it just may unpucker you butt and make you a better person
This is a good thing.
No question.
I just hope it doesn’t go the route of the Sierra club. They purchase land and purchase politicians to restrict public land. Yet the restricted land is not restricted to Sierra club leadership. They and their guests are exempt.
How many millions of acres of public land are off limits to the little guy…
Exactly.
Some people can’t think to connect ANYTHING.
So true. They are the worst. If people would only pay attention to what is really going on. The ELITES AND THEIR HYPOCRISY! But it’s hard because the media covers for them.
Please people/ friends, do not donate money to the Sierra Club. Also don’t donate to the Red Cross.
I’m really disappointed now, I was hoping for a Olive Garden up there. Just imagine eating those endless bread sticks while enjoying that spectacular view.
Maybe a Chic fa lay or In and Out also.
If Mt Diablo was in Europe it would have a great cable car going to the top with a cool restaurant for coffee, beer, and snacks. I think we are missing out and backwards. As great as the top is it is underused.
This would be a great addition to the mountain! There is a newer gondola at OAK Zoo, and the BART-OAK airport connector. Napa Sterling Vinyards is getting a brand new gondola next year, so we should get one for the one and only Mt. Diablo. Tourist vehicle access up the mountain is not required when transported by a gondola, plus the rare snow days can still operate.
https://www.doppelmayr.com/applications/urban/
https://liftblog.com/2022/01/15/sterling-vineyards-to-debut-new-gondola-in-2023/
At the very least, let’s get a zip line from the Mt. Diablo Summit to the Village Market in Clayton.
If you go down the line first Doc
“Permanently Protected” from what? Covid 19
Protected from us peasants using the land.
With all the democrat masks littered all over the streets and parks you may think that, but masks don’t stop viruses and COVID-19 is a HOAX
These are the same people that keep cyclists off our trails that we all pay for. They are an exclusive group of rich horse people. They are not saving it for us. They save it for them.
As stated above, their only advocacy is for horse access. They actively try to shut down other recreation. May they all meet Superman’s fate.
Talk to a few longtime landowners who own land adjacent to, or needing access through property purchased by SMD and you’d have a much different perspective of SMD as portrayed in the media. How much land purchased by this group has actually been open for public access? Very little to none from what I can see. Even some of the longtime landowners are having right of way access issues with this group. They’re definitely not there for the public good or even with the publics best interests in mind.
And so it came to pass… the angry Claycord contrarian mob turned against the Clayton old guard and its rich legacy of horse culture. Personally, I never felt horses were worth all the bother, but I admire those that are maintaining the craft. In case this whole internal combustion thing doesn’t work out (it’s not), it would be good to have as many people and widely dispersed as possible that know how horses work.
Some of it is off limits because wildflowers once thought extinct have been found surviving there.
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