Riverside Drive: Mudwatch

Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor #1, January 6, 2015.  We're on mudwatch for the lots on Riverside Drive near Gilroy. (Click on photos to enlarge.)

The neighbor was rightfully concerned, due to the high volume of rain combined with the way a path was bulldozed, creating a perfect path for water and mud.  This slope is in a landslide zone.

The same neighbor sent me a text regarding the earthmover that was working on the Riverside lots last week.  "I saw them doing it.  Didn't even take it [the earthmover] off the truck trailer, just reaching over the sidewalk pulling the hill down towards the street."  Gee, looks like they were hoping to take out one of the few protected native California Black Walnut Trees (to the left of the mud ramp), "by accident." 

Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor #2, December 31, 2015.  Last week, after the earthmover bashed into the large tree at the top of the wavy staircase, Neighbor #2 sent photos of the lots.  In the above photo, the light beige piles, a third of the way upslope, are piles of dirt.  

When Neighbor #2 sent the photos, I checked the Building & Safety website for permits on all the vacant lots on Riverside Drive.  None had even been applied for.

Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor #2, December 31, 2015.  Neighbor #2 saw a backhoe digging up on the lots last week.  Via email, he said the backhoe broke off a large branch of the tree atop the wavy staircase.  It looks like the second large branch is ready to go too. I'm not sure what kind of tree it is, but it does drop its leaves for winter.  If it was not a protected native tree, it definitely had more than an 8" trunk diameter, making it a significant tree a developer would have to replace.

The Red Car Property is directly above the Riverside Drive lots where, in 2014, more than a dozen protected California Black Walnut Trees were cut down without permits.

The Red Car Property and its rougher adjacent areas are still a lawless place.