Huge discrepancies in numbers of Joshua trees and Mojave yuccas in just six years at the Sage Estates housing development in Yucca Valley led the Yucca Valley Town Council to order a third inventory of native plants. Managing editor Tami Roleff says the planning commission received the results last night, along with explanations for why the numbers varied so much…
In 2009, the developer of the Sage Estates subdivision, near Golden Bee Drive and Sage Avenue, counted 859 Joshua trees and 517 Mojave yuccas on the property. But when a second inventory was taken in 2015, those numbers had dropped dramatically, to 298 and 166, respectively. Town staff performed its own inventory last year, and the numbers were much closer: 827 Joshua trees, and 739 yuccas. At last night’s meeting of the Yucca Valley Planning Commission, commissioners learned why there was such a big difference between 2009 and 2015. When the survey was taken in 2015, some clusters of Joshua trees or yuccas were counted as 1 plant, even though there may have been a dozen plants in the cluster. And the project engineer also stated that when they counted the plants in 2015, they only counted the plants they moved and didn’t count the plants they left in place on the site. With the reason for the discrepancies addressed, the planning commission approved the native plant inventory information.
In other business, the council approved a conditional use permit and environmental assessment for Popeye’s Chicken.
