Let’s do some math. Take a relatively small Brian Sweeney house, guest house and garage complex of 10,000 square feet. For simplicity let’s make that structure 100′ by 100′. Of course, it is going to be a highly flammable structure because that is what everyone builds in the chaparral, so the fire department will want a minimum of 200′ of clearance. (They’d really like to clear the entire mountain range if they could.) So now one has a neat little 500′ by 500′ square or circle, using your ¼r2 formula. That gives us either 250,000 square feet or 196,250 square feet of barren, lunarscape. Use you 43,560 square feet acreage to divide into these numbers and you math majors will come up with a swath of either 5.7 or 4.5 acres per complex. Multiply by five and throw in that 1,600′ two lane highway to complete Sweetwater Mesa and one will have close to 25 to 30 acres of utterly “improved” land. But don’t think that he is stopping here. No, he has legions of these little projects.
What is the big deal about these native weeds? Good question. For the sake of brevity let’s take one example-Ceanothus-six species. From the lowly leaf minors to the surreal silk moth, to the intoxicating spring blooms, to the billions of nutritious seeds, this common “weed” helps support the entire food chain. So when Sweeney and the myriad of others come along to clear or replace the non-natives (which do not enhance the habitat aesthetically or in any other way) we lose the plant/pollinator/animal relationship obvious to anyone who opens his or her eyes.
Perhaps if times were harsh! Perhaps if Sweeney had a cardboard hovel with hungry squealing mouths to feed, we could lend him a sympathetic ear. Alas, as is the case with his other developer friends, this isn’t about malnourishment, it is simply a game. With the City Council neatly tucked away, he can leave us one more of many legacies that merely attest to his massive ego. It’s too bad we can’t thank him, but he doesn’t live here. Perhaps his children or future generations could thank him. Perhaps we could all thank him. Thank you for leaving our mountains alone.
J. H. Wilson