Protection, or imposition?

Some desert property owners argue that state safeguards for Joshua trees have created an unfair financial burden

- By Alex Wigglesworth

ENVIRONMENTALISTS say protections for Joshua trees are needed because the succulent is losing habitat.

Imagine this: After years of toiling in the Southern California rat race, you buy a parcel of land in the high desert. It is here, on a sunny lot thick with Joshua trees, that you plan to build your retirement home.

But before you can get a shovel into the ground, everything changes. Joshua trees become candidates for the state’s threatened and endangered species list and are then protected by an unprecedented conservation law. You must now apply for permits and pay fees — not just for removing the plants, but in some cases for disturbing the land around them. You must even get permits to pick up fallen branches.

You have two options: You can pay tens of thousands of dollars and navigate a morass of policies. If you want to someday add a pool or an accessory dwelling unit or even replace a sewage pipe, you'll have to do the same thing again, potentially paying for work performed near the same trees.

Or you can walk away.

That’s the dilemma facing some property owners in desert regions outside Los Angeles, according to Alec Mackie, who bought land in Yucca Valley in 2022. He had planned to build a home that required the removal of eight Joshua trees. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife said his project could affect 63 trees and billed him $32,961.75.