The term “thinking outside the box” is a cliché that has seen its day, but it most certainly applies to the critical thinking by developers proposing a nearly 5,000-acre community that would span the line dividing Imperial and Riverside counties.
Travertine Point, which also includes a portion of the Torres-Martinez Indian reservation, was approved by the Imperial County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.
It has been called a unique project, one that harkens to the Salton Sea’s heyday of decades ago, when it was the hubbub of recreational activity frequented by Hollywood royalty. The state’s largest inland body of water once was home to speedboat races and fishing derbies and seen by developers as a sort of Promised Land. Planned communities began springing up along its shores. Most of those developments never came to fruition, leaving behind infrastructure such as streets that, although named, lead to nowhere.
Travertine Point, which bears the same name as the rocky cliffs near the county line, would bring the planned 16,600 homes, along with 40 pedestrian miles, 18 miles of bicycle lanes, schools and a golf course, to the western shores of the Salton Sea.
Where developers have thought outside the box is in plans to aid efforts to revive the dying sea by matching funds to the Salton Sea Action Committee. There will be onsite solar production and floodwater will be collected as it drains from the nearby mountains, then cleaned and delivered to the sea.
An increase in population in the area also is expected to help bring legislative and media attention, offering hope to save the sea.
The sea was formed when Colorado River floodwaters breached a canal in 1905 and refilled the briny ancient lakebed known as the Salton Sink. Described as a birders’ paradise, the sea and surrounding wetlands are home to a variety of waterfowl, including the endangered brown pelican, and are a vital avian rest stop on the Pacific flyway. Now, 108 years after its most recent incarnation, the sea is shrinking, exposing miles of playa, threatening the livelihood of those living in its vicinity.
That developers are seeking to help efforts to save the sea while benefiting from homebuyers is a novel way of doing business in Imperial County. Time will determine whether those efforts pay off for them, for the sea, and for us. We certainly hope so.
THE ISSUE:
Travertine Point development.
WE SAY:
It’s a novel idea, and one we hope pays off.
WHAT DO YOU SAY?
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