About us

why we formed

Protect Our Safety, Save Elnoka (POSSE) is a group of Elnoka Wildland neighbors concerned about how this proposed housing development could affect wildfire and evacuation safety, ecological resources, scenic value, traffic congestion, and insurance rates.

In March 2024—20 months before Burbank’s development plans were made public—the Oakmont Village Association (OVA) Board agreed in writing to support an “approximately 272-unit” housing development on the adjacent 69-acre Elnoka wildland, in exchange for the developer’s constructing an emergency vehicle access (EVA) road from Stonebridge Rd. in Oakmont across Elnoka wildland to Melita Road.

Not until the developer’s plans were made public—just before Thanksgiving 2025—could Oakmont residents review the plans and grasp the full impact of what the OVA Board had agreed to support. Residents no longer can count on the OVA Board to represent our concerns to the city planning department…we must do that ourselves.

Back in 2021, the OVA Board played a strong role in opposing the previous housing development on Elnoka, representing residents’ concerns about wildfire hazard, evacuation safety, regional traffic congestion, and quality of life. Unfortunately, the current project fails to adequately address these same community concerns. What you will hear from the developer and the OVA Board is the developer’s spin on the project.

This website aims to provide a different perspective, to expose some of the potentially significant aspects of this Elnoka project THAT COULD IMPACT OUR SAFETY AND QUALITY OF LIFE and how we might address them.