490 Acres Added to Mount Madonna County Park

By Bay City News

Santa Clara County has bought 490 acres north of Gilroy to expand Mt. Madonna County Park to include a redwood forest and stretch of a creek providing a habitat for wildlife, county officials said.

The county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday finalized a $4 million deal to purchase the land, known as the Della Maggiora property, on Redwood Retreat Road outside Gilroy, according to county spokeswoman Gwen Mitchell.


The acquisition permits the County Parks and Recreation Department to link existing land in Mt. Madonna to the 16-acre Little Arthur property, up to now separated from the park by the Della Maggiora property, according to Mitchell.

The new land, in unincorporated county property bordered on three sides by the park, combines steep cliffs, grassland, oak trees, a redwood forest and more than a half-mile of the Little Arthur Creek that serves as the environment for steelhead trout and other wildlife. The county intends to link trails from the Little Arthur property through the new Della Maggiora parcel, according to Mitchell.    

The county obtained the 490-acre property working with the Peninsula Open Space Trust starting in November 2012. The purchase price from POST and a trust that owned the Della Maggiora land was $4 million, funded through the county's Parks Charter Fund, the California State Coastal Conservancy and Resources Legacy Fund.

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