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On Friday the nonprofit conservation group Trust for Public Land (TPL) announced the purchase of the Deer Creek Beach property in Ventura County, California just northwest of Malibu for about $25 million. TPL intends to transfer ownership of the property to the adjacent Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area that is managed by the National Park Service and California State Parks.
Decades-long legal disputes had cast doubt over the future of the 1,250 acres of land that biologists covet as environmentally valuable for myriad species while developers see it as prime real estate—the median home price in the area is around $5 million. For more than 20 years, the National Park Service has been targeting the Mansford property as a potentially “high-value acquisition” to enhance connectivity between the Santa Monica Mountains and the 14,000-acre Point Mugu State Park.
Guillermo Rodriguez, TPL's California state director says it may take another two years to complete the procedures necessary to bring the property under management by the National Park Service. In the meantime, TPL plans to raise an additional $5 million that is necessary to improve public access to the area. “Land once thought lost forever to development and industry is being reclaimed for wildlife and the health and well-being of the public,” Rodriguez said. “Conservation in California is arduous, frustrating and expensive, but the results are worth it.”
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Americans in these Western states of both political parties agree that holding and protecting large amounts of public land and national ownership really has been extraordinarily visionary and beneficial.”
