Just when we thought we were out of the guerilla war over habitat planning in San Diego, they pulled us back in , threatening a fragile peace treaty that preserved hundreds of thousands of acres of habitat while protecting landowner rights at the same time.
The treaty is called the Multiple Species Conservation Plan. And when it was created several years ago, the MSCP was hailed as a national model of cooperation and effective environmentalism. Today the MSCP is even more important , having set aside 177,000 acres of habitat in San Diego alone. But it is also in more danger than ever. And if this peace treaty disappears, no one will lose more than the people of San Diego.
Here’s why: Habitat planning on the coast of California used to be a lose-lose situation: A guerilla war with no end, and no victory in sight. Builders knew it. So did environmentalists. So did the regulators.
That’s because every time environmentalists stopped a development that threatened the habitat of a sensitive species, they knew the species needed more than the isolated few acres they were able to preserve. Piecemeal conservation was not the answer.
Landowners lost, too. They knew that as long as their property was anywhere near the nesting area of a gnatcatcher or spotted butterfly, they could not afford the delay and expense of legal challenges to every house, road and piece of infrastructure they wanted to create.
Endless Conflicts
But the fights raged on, project by project, house by house, loss by loss, until finally all sides admitted what everyone already knew: Saving habitat a block at a time was worthless, because animals need larger, contiguous areas to thrive. And these interminable guerilla wars were not producing that , not until the state Legislature approved the Natural Community Conservation Act several years ago.
In what Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt called a “revolutionary” plan, environmentalists and landowners agreed to a tradeoff: To set aside hundreds of thousands of acres of habitat across the state for endangered species, while in return, setting aside other, more appropriate land for development.
San Diego was among the first to create such a plan, the MSCP, a tradeoff that landowners, environmentalists and government officials in California celebrated and held up as a national model in papers throughout the country.
In New Orleans, the Times-Picayune hailed the new law as “a living symbol of a major turning point in the U.S. environmental movement.” The Washington Post called it a “model for a new approach.” USA Today called it a “trailblazing shift.”
‘Watershed’ Agreement
Michael Beck of the Endangered Habitat League said it was a “watershed” moment because it allowed them to move from planning habitat to implementing those plans. From talking to doing.
Everyone was happy, but not too happy. Landowners lost land. Environmentalists lost habitat. But everyone still ended up with more than what they would have had otherwise.
And it worked pretty well until last year, when a state appeals court decision knocked the legs from underneath the most important part of the NCCP law: The court said trading isolated habitat in one part of the coastal zone for better, more plentiful, and contiguous habitat in another was no longer allowed.
The case in question involved the Bolsa Chica coastal wetlands in Orange County. The court’s decision said environmentally sensitive habitat area could not be touched, no matter how badly it was degraded; no matter how much mitigating habitat was provided; no matter what Bruce Babbitt claimed; no matter what the Endangered Habitat League wanted; no matter what anyone said.
Without mitigation, there is no MSCP. Because there is simply no other way to acquire the land needed for effective habitat preservation: It’s too expensive to buy. And we can’t just take it, contrary to the wishes of some latecomers to the MSCP process.
And without MSCP in the coastal zone, there is no MSCP.
Broken Promises
The effect of this decision up and down the coastal zone was immediate: Habitat plans came into question because landowners and environmentalists no longer had their most important tool to preserve them. Many who consider themselves environmentalists thought this gave them the best of both worlds: Landowners would give up habitat, cities would give up roads, and in exchange, environmentalists would give up nothing. They made a deal, then they reneged.
This thinking permeated to the state Coastal Commission, which discovered almost five years after the creation of these habitat conservation plans that saved hundreds of thousands of acres of habitat, that it did not really like this way of saving coastal habitat after all.
As for the MSCP and other habitat plans that were created, they involved other state agencies, not the Coastal Commission, so they claimed. And so they said the Coastal Commission staffers and members were not bound by such arrangements.
Promising Legislation
Thus unravels the most important and effective environmental program in the history of this state. Dead before it ever had a chance to live. But not quite yet.
Luckily, the state Legislature contains people who not only recognize the injustice of such a plan, they also know this attitude will destroy habitat planning by destroying the consensus that is creating it.
And that is why the legislation that state Assemblywoman Denise Ducheny, D-National City, has introduced to correct the abuses the Bolsa Chica decision is so important for existing and future habitat plans. And that is why those of us who know and remember the importance of regional habitat planning are supporting her efforts by reminding everyone that we are out of the guerilla wars, and we do not want to get pulled back in.
Wanke is a Point Loma business owner.
