EIGHT WILD ACRES IN SR THREATENED

My Russian grandmother had a favorite saying when she craved something

visually pleasing with symmetry: ''The eye wants something, too.''

I maintain that what our eyes and even our souls want in our town life is

that flash of wildness or animal beauty that is undervalued in our culture. We

need it for survival, like water.

Walk with me through my northeast Santa Rosa neighborhood of low-slung,

1950s Eichler-style homes, and you will see undeveloped acreage -- Santa Rosa

Memorial Cemetery and the smaller rural cemetery, where the town's pioneers

lie. Nearby is 60-plus acres of county-owned flood-control land, dotted with

heritage live oaks and madrone.

Raccoon, quail and wild turkeys live here. A marsh, designated as a bird

sanctuary, is part of the 60 acres. The Bird Rescue Center releases

rehabilitated native songbirds and raptors here.

At dusk, a pair of foxes streaks through my yard, headed for the refuge of

the field. Hawks wait high in the native oaks, scanning for prey in the

grasses below.

In the 15 years I have lived in this neighborhood, I have watched countless

visitors walk respectfully up the narrow path of the county acreage. Families

with buckets for blackberries, kids with fishing poles, photographers with

tripods have lingered here.

Always, if I am in my yard, they stop to comment on such unspoiled beauty,

here in the heart of town. Always, I have reassured them, ''It will never be

developed. It's county land--flood control.''

This beautiful unspoiled riparian corridor -- less than two miles from

downtown -- will always be open space. But development plans are afoot for

eight acres of privately owned land connected to and visually inseparable from

this open space. Recently identified as Paulin Creek Canyon, it is bordered by

Chanate Road at a blind curve near Murdock Road. It has remained wild all

these years.

It's easy to see why -- it's a heavily wooded riparian canyon atop an

earthquake fault, and it slopes steeply to a creek.

The Department of Fish and Game has identified this natural corridor as a

highly important habitat island for wildlife within a dense urban area, a

major deer use corridor and fawning area, and a nesting location for raptors

and passerine birds.

A development proposal called Paulin Creek Estates plans the construction

of five upscale houses. A 16-foot asphalt access road is proposed within the

30-foot setback for Paulin Creek, once habitat for freshwater otters.

Fifty-five native trees are marked for removal.

We know about infill, how it makes sense to build houses on lots standing

idle within the city, parcels already accessible to roads. But these eight

wild acres have stood empty for a reason. While supremely hospitable to

wildlife, they are inherently inhospitable to building. Traffic patterns on

Chanate prohibit turning in here. This narrow canyon is like the slender toe

of a large boot-shaped piece of land. Like Cinderella's stepsisters, a

developer wishes to cram something ungainly and oversized into something

beautiful and inherently fragile. The rolling hillsides would be leveled and

graded, the creek degraded.

A group called Friends of Paulin Creek, with members from all over Sonoma

County, has formed to seek willing partners to acquire this property and to

protect this acreage as open space.

Word has spread to elected officials that Paulin Creek Canyon is worth more

to the community as a protected watershed and wildlife refuge than as a

building site for five houses, and they are listening. They acknowledge its

value as a sanctuary where people can escape from worldly concerns without

driving for miles and roam, calmed by its natural beauty.

Think about it. What makes better sense? An urban refuge of tranquillity

for people and wildlife, or the same large houses that are now ubiquitous on

the once pristine ridgetops of Santa Rosa?

When it's gone, it's gone. Experience has shown the money required to

restore a degraded waterway far exceeds the money required to protect an

unspoiled one.

As John Sawhill, past president of the Nature Conservancy, said, ''In the

end, our society will be defined not only by what we create, but by what we

refuse to destroy.''

Jane Holly Love is a member of the Paulin Creek Steering Committee, which

has formed to maintain this property as open space.