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On Monday, January 22, the nonprofit Conservation Fund announced it had purchased the 3,654-acre Richmond Ranch near San Jose, California. The land will be given over to Santa Clara County to be managed as a habitat reserve and park, protected from future development.
Conservationists and local hikers alike have reasons to celebrate the land’s transfer to public ownership. Several threatened and endangered species live in the area, including the Tule elk, gray fox, puma, and badger. The property abuts other state parks and protected land, which means that the animals’ habitat will remain cohesive and uninterrupted.
When the former ranch reopens as a park, it will also fill an important gap in local hiking routes, particularly the Bay Area Ridge Trail. Around 400 miles of the planned 550-mile loop are already established, and some of the largest gaps are along the trail’s southern curve by San Jose. The ranch will help fill in that missing link, once trails are built through its meadows and foothills situated at the convergence of the Diablo and Santa Cruz mountains. From the parcel’s highest point, the top of 2,464-foot Mount Misery, are views of downtown San Jose and the bay.
“The views are just magnificent,” Eric Ross, real estate agent with Santa Clara County Parks and Recreation, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Once we get a few trails through there, it’ll be excellent.
The Conservation Trust bought the ranch from Z&L Properties, part of a Chinese real estate company that had owned it since 2016, for $16 million—significantly less than both its appraised worth and how much Z&L paid for it eight years ago.
“It’s not every day the county gets a bargain like this for public access,” Conservation Fund project manager Dan Medeiros told the San Francisco Chronicle.
From 2024
