| Canyon Crest's Impacts: Biology | ||
 This Project would impact 216
acres of plant communities, including 34 acres of sensitive natural
communities. The Project would result in the removal of 1,899 trees
-- 1,147 walnut trees (every single walnut tree on site), 645 oak
trees and others. They claim these are stunted and unhealthy trees.
Perhaps the drought has something to do with this or the fact that
the site has frequently burned in the recent past or the fact that
it is actually not a sign of ill health for an oak tree to be short
in stature.  The Shopoff Group’s response to
this distruction is to offer to plant 7,000 (mostly one gallon) trees on site.
That sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, natural habitat is
not like a Christmas tree farm in which you cram in as many trees as
will physically fit. Oak and walnut trees grow where the soil,
water, and sun conditions are right. If those conditions are not
right then whatever is planted will die. Knowing this already, the
Shopoff Group has offered to plant trees at an off-site location if
there is not viable space on the Project site. But where is that
off-site tree mitigation site located? At this point it does not
appear to exist.The end result is that almost 2,000 oak and walnut trees will be removed with no realistic chance of replacing them. So what will take their place - opportunistic, fast burning non native annuals? The Final EIR states that, “since the existing natural woodland values cannot be fully replaced in the context of a developed residential community, this impact is both significant and unavoidable.” Of course it is avoidable if the trees are not removed to begin with.
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