ConnectingCalifornia.org

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In Coachella Valley:
Plans Thrown Out for Carbon-spewing Resort

8/12/2008--Adding to the Center for Biological Diversity's fast-developing list of anti-climate-change triumphs in California, last Friday a court rejected the proposal for a luxury resort near Joshua Tree National Park because it failed to address greenhouse gases. The emissions of the planned Palmwood resort, a 2,600-home development complete with hotel, golf courses, and more, would be entirely inconsistent with the California Environmental Quality Act, as well as the California Global Warming Solutions Act and the governor's 2005 executive order calling for reducing emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

Besides harming the climate, construction of the Palmwood resort would decimate habitat for many rare species, including bighorn sheep, burrowing owls, the Palm Springs pocket mouse, and the loggerhead shrike. The Center, along with Sierra Club, already won one case against the project when the Riverside County regional planning agency denied it a permit based largely on its clash with a habitat conservation plan. The latest ruling will be another nail in the development's coffin.

Read more in Desert Local News.

The project proposed more than 2,600 homes, over 1 million square feet of commercial space, a 400-room hotel, an amphitheater, and two golf courses on the open space in the northwest Coachella Valley. Documents uncovered by the Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club demonstrated the city rushed the project through a shoddy environmental review process in order to fast-track the development.