After several attempts, a bill that clears the way for the first expansion of Chino Hills State Park in 15 years has become law.
Late on Saturday, Oct. 9, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 266, requiring the state to incorporate 1,530 acres of eastern ridgelines into park boundaries. The previous addition to the 14,107-acre state park situated on the edges of Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Orange and Riverside counties took place in 2006.
The bill, authored by state Sen. Josh Newman, D-Fullerton, would result in about a 10% increase in the size of the state park, which gets about 300,000 visitors per year and is used by joggers, walkers, hikers, mountain bikers, equestrians and bird-watchers who traverse 60 miles of trails over rolling hills, oak woodlands and meandering streams.
Newman’s bill, co-authored by Assemblyman Phillip Chen, R-Brea, erases a ban on expanding the state park, even though the land was already acquired by outside agencies and environmental groups. Two similar bills — one in 2019 and in 2020 — failed to reach the governor’s desk.
“It is really gratifying. We are finally taking the next steps to incorporate these parcels after the delay,” said Newman Monday, Oct. 11.
In 2020 and again this year, the nonprofit Hills For Everyone, which started the park in 1977, arranged for the sale of pristine ridgeline properties in Chino Hills on the northeastern edge of the park, each about 320 acres in size, plus an 80-acre parcel, in order to prevent development. The group is working on buying an adjoining 800-acre parcel for conservation. A 10-acre piece of land in Brea is being donated.
Claire Schlotterbeck, the nonprofit’s executive director, said the group has been acquiring land to protect the park’s boundaries from development and ruining the feeling of being away from civilization while inside the park. But the group had to rely on the Mountains and Rivers Conservation Authority, the same group that oversees the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, as interim owners.
The expansion of the park will wait until all the parcels in question are acquired, a process that could take at least a year or two, Schlotterbeck said.
Newman said he will invite state park officials this fall to view the already-acquired ridgelines in Chino Hills.
“We’ve had our eyes on these parcels since the park was designed, since 1977,” Schlotterbeck said. “That is how important they are. Once you are inside the park you don’t know there are 18 million people on the outside.”
The ridgeline properties complete the original design for the park’s eastern, San Bernardino County boundary, she said. The Brea land, a 10-acre swath of rare walnut woodlands with a stream, completes the park’s western boundary in Orange County.
And the new legislation requires the state to incorporate adjacent, acquired lands into the park, completing a court settlement that required the state to obtain woodlands after it allowed the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California to build a secondary road through the park.
“The Department of Finance put a boot to the throat of the state parks and wouldn’t let them acquire any land,” Schlotterbeck said.
Newman said the state Department of Parks was stretched thin since the Great Recession of 2008-09 and didn’t have the resources to manage additional park lands.
“I’ve gotten positive feedback from the state parks department people that they are committed to doing this,” he said. “I don’t see any problems.”
Chino Hills State Park has become more popular during the coronavirus pandemic as visitors flocked to the park as a safe, outdoor space to walk, hike or view flower blooms.
Non-human residents include deer, mountain lions and bobcats, as well as the endangered California gnatcatcher (Polioptila californica) and other native birds. Chino Hills park links with the 31-mile Puente-Chino Hills containing 200 species of birds and mammals. The land acquisitions may also bridge the gap for animals crossing to and from the nearby Prado Basin.
“As people look for things to do safely, they rediscovered parks, and in this case, Chino Hills State Park, where people can find an outlet in nature,” Newman said. “As the state gets bigger, as population increases, open space doesn’t — unless you preserve it.”
