Proposed surf park in California desert is rejected by La Quinta City Council
A proposed surf park in the Mojave Desert near La Quinta, Calif., which has been rejected by a city council.
The proposed surf park near La Quinta, Calif. was rejected by La Quinta City Council, which cited the need for more public input before moving forward.
If approved, the park would be located in the rugged Mojave Desert about 30 miles north of the Los Angeles suburbs, near the ghost town of Joshua Tree.
The California Desert National Monument is home to numerous ancient cultural sites, including the site of the ancient Uruk-Ekur isles city of Uruk.
The proposed park would have been at the site of this ancient city — with the proposed location near Joshua Tree at least 100 miles north of Los Angeles.
It would have also been in the area where the first permanent settlements were made, including the oldest cities of Mesoamerica — such as Tepehua, the capital of Teotihuacan.
La Quinta City Council met as scheduled Thursday evening to discuss proposed plans for a surf park in the desert community of La Quinta.
The council narrowly rejected the proposal, citing the need for more public input before moving forward.
“We did not get the amount of comments that I hoped for (on the surf park),” councilwoman Kim Gandy told NPR after the meeting. “I feel that there needs to be a little more public input before moving forward.”
The park — which would have been in the Mojave Desert near Joshua Tree — was part of a larger proposal to develop a $60 million regional water supply and public infrastructure project.
The project would have meant the conversion of more than five square miles of the desert’s open lands into new parks and open-air recreational lands stretching the length of the Baja California Peninsula from San Diego to Brownsville.
The project was being spearheaded by the La Quinta Water District, which is also known as the La Quinta Economic Development Initiative.
The public meetings on the proposal took place in January of this year at locations around the city after an ordinance to approve the plan was not passed by a 6-4 vote at the meeting.
It sparked a heated debate, with the majority of the council favoring the
