SDCP - Steering Committee
Windmill Inn at St. Phillip's Plaza
6:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Wednesday, May 1, 2002
Meeting Notes
 
Participants:  See attached sign-in sheet, Maeveen Behan, David Steele and SIMG staff.
 
 Documents made available to the Steering Committee members at the meeting:
* Cyndy Coping's presentation
* Carolyn Campbell's presentation from the April 6th meeting
* Mary Miller's Presentation from the April 6th meeting
* Ernie Cohen's Proposed Resolution
* Amended Agendas
* Quarterly Report
* Draft Schedule for future meetings.
* Steering Committee Issues Matrix

 
Meeting Commenced at 6:00 pm
Meeting commenced with 30 Steering Committee members and 13 members of the general public. David Steele opened up the meeting by introducing himself, reviewing the ground rules and reviewing the agenda. By 6:45 there were 50 Steering Committee members present.
 
Logistics for the next meeting:
Saturday, May 18, 2002
8:00 am to 1:00pm
Field trip to Empire Ranch
 
Old Business:
Approval of meeting notes from April 6th meeting:
* Meeting notes were approved.

 
Resolution on Ranching and the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan:
This item from the April 6 meeting was deferred until it could be properly noticed on an agenda.    Ernie Cohen wanted the Steering Committee's adoption of the recommendation to the Board of Supervisors economically viable responsible ranching used as an element of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan to preserve wildlife habitat and open space.   
Discussion:
* Some members questioned the value of time expended on this issue as Chuck Huckleberry had already addressed this previously.
* Other members felt that if ranching had previously been noted as one of the six elements of the Plan then this recommendation was unnecessary.

Course of action: Defer this issue until a future meeting, when Ernie can have an opportunity to address the Steering Committee. 
 
Call to the public:
No one from the public responded to this call.
 
New Business:
·        The Ad-Hoc Subcommittee suggested that when presentations from speakers were made, Steering Committee members would have the opportunity to ask questions first and then there would be a call to the public. 
·        During the discussion comparing the 55 species map and the 8 endangered species maps at the March 6th meeting, Maeveen Behan suggested that the county was nearing completion of a report that compared the extent of those areas, the overlap of species coverage, and the omission of species coverage and possibly the value of land in those coverages. That study has been completed and was provided to the Steering Committee members present at the April 6th meeting.
 
Stakeholder Presentations:
Avra Valley--Cindy Coping: Ms. Coping is a Steering Committee member and member of the Ironwood Conservation Alliance. Her presentation was on behalf of the Alliance regarding their stand on the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan.
* Goal: To have the Ironwood Monument excluded from the Section Ten Permit.
* The Ironwood Conservation Alliance feels there is no benefit or advantage to Pima County if the Ironwood Monument is included in the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan.
* They recommend maintaining the current status quo of land ownership, land uses and management in the Ironwood Monument.
* Cindy also provided a printed copy of her presentation to the Steering Committee members.

Questions and Discussion:
* The approach being taken is that preserving habitat for these species that we want covered will be used as land use pressures elsewhere in the county destroy habit in those areas. By preserving enough habitats the animals could migrate and use the areas that are part of the core reserve.  The fact that endangered species aren't found there currently doesn't necessarily mean that this is not a habitat that should be preserved for future expansion of the endangered species into that area.

Cindy:  Ok, there's two things.  One is the lion-share of the land out there is federal.  And it's already protected; it's in a national monument.  The second thing is, the state's not willing to participate; the third thing is the scattered parcels of land of the deeded parcels of land are all scattered, so, and if you're trying to preserve habitat, you pretty much already done that, and you can still preserve habitat without preserving it under a Section Ten Permit.  You can still have a Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan and you could split out a Section Ten element and say, these are the things I really need.  Well, the purpose of Section Ten is to protect you from Section Nine, to relieve you from Section Nine.  So why not say, ok, I'm going to take just animals that are endangered and put them in the Section Ten Permit and things that probably are going to be listed and put them in Section Ten and take all of these plants and all these other animals and all these habitats and do a plan outside of the Section Ten so that the county is not burdened by the federal government for the next 30 years.  We don't need to be; we can still have a plan, but why put it under Section Ten.
 
·        The purpose of the Section Ten Permit is to help the individual homeowner as well as the developer if they wish to develop a parcel of land, whether it be for a water well or home site, they are covered for any incidental take of an endangered species that may show up on that particular parcel of land. This would only help the homeowner so they wouldn't have to incur the time, resources and monetary expense themselves. Why wouldn't you want the County to take care of all that for you?
·        The Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan, aside from the Section Ten Permit, is to make the monitoring management of our natural resources in Pima County consistent across jurisdictions and boundaries and that we would keep local control; it wouldn't be federal control.
 
Economics Consultant update:
Pima County is in the process of reviewing the comments from the Steering Committee regarding the RFP; therefore the RFP has not gone to the Board of Supervisors yet. County Administrator, Chuck Huckleberry stated in March that the Board of Supervisors had a temporary target date for completion of the RFP selection by the end of the year, or nine months. He was fairly confident that the Steering Committee would have something in place in terms of economics consultant fourth quarter of this year. He didn't nail down a specific timeframe on when a preferred alternative recommendation would be needed from this group. The projected date for the RFP to go out to the public was estimated to be within the next two weeks.
Discussion:
* It's very important that we judge what the preferred alternatives are after we get the information on what it's going to cost the community.
* Steering Committee member, Michael Zimit made the motion that Harold Barnett act as liaison between the Steering Committee and Pima County in formulating the RFP

Motion was made to have Harold Barnett address the Steering Committee at this meeting:
Discussion:
* While some members felt they did not want any one other than a Steering Committee member representing them to the Board of Supervisors, other Steering Committee members wanted to hear Mr. Barnett.

·        The comment was made that Supervisor Bronson addressed the Steering Committee regarding this very issue and that the county was going to put together a committee to review the RFP, the contract, and the work that the contractors would be doing. She also said that there would be at least two people from the Steering Committee on that committee.
·        Some members of the Steering Committee felt that perhaps it would be beneficial to have Harold Barnett also sit on that committee as an economist.
* The Board of Supervisors will consider the comments that have been received and consider the RFP and then will establish a committee to evaluate the respondents to the RFP.

The Steering Committee voted to hear a presentation from Harold Barnett, retired Professor of Economics at the University of Rhode Island:
* To do an economic analysis one needs to know what the alternative looks like, but to choose among alternatives you have to have some sense of what the cost is.
* If Pima county could provide the necessary information regarding how much land and what land characteristics have to be set aside to satisfy the requirements of the section 10 permit then it would be possible to address the economic cost of having withdrawn that land from development within the county.
* The question repeatedly asked is:  who is going to pay? The cost is the same no matter who pays; therefore, that question doesn't have to be answered to move forward with an economic analysis.

Discussion:
* Accurate information from an economic analysis will not be available until appropriate land use, intensity and different alternatives for conservation information is looked at.

Harold:  I agree with you that the more detail you have, the more closer, the more refined the estimate's going to be.  I think the question is, when you get into a lot of the detail are you really changing basic assumptions in terms of intensity of land use.  Now, you may be talking about a different way of doing it, but, effectively, you might be doing, assuming, the economic impact of the plan, is really a question about what happens to growth as you withdraw land or change the intensity with which land is being used.  And there's, there are administrative costs as well.  So, yes, I mean, you certainly get closer with more detail.
* It's more of a savings to us to put in a conservation plan and not to build high density than it is to build high density. Where do we make that transition? If we end up, saying this is a cost and decide to set aside 20%, then the next logical step for the development communities is to say, if you're not going to let us re-zone this at a higher density, then you have to pay us, when indeed it's just a speculative deal.  How do you keep control on that?

Harold:  It is clear that there is benefits to conservation.  One of the problems is that it's a lot more difficult to estimate the benefits than it is to estimate the cost.  Ultimately, supporting or evaluating a plan comes down to knowing about the benefits as well as the cost. Part of the question that's posed to the RFP is fiscal impact and that clearly includes both the cost of the taxpayers and supporting growth as well as the revenue that comes from growth.
* Presently the county only goes parcel by parcel.  That's all that we have available. Are you suggesting something different?

Harold:  I'm simply suggesting that it's possible to do the analysis, effectively by aggregating over parcels within specific areas, as opposed to; you could do it by planning area.  And in many respects, I would think that proceeding that way would allow you to get results while not having to make as many assumptions as would be the case, say, if you looked at it on a parcel by parcel basis.  Different consultants will come up with different approaches.  My only point was that you don't need complete information on what the conservation system would look like, to estimate the costs and then that information is then valuable in choosing among alternatives. 
 
Steering Committee member, Larry Berlin: At the April 6, meeting Mr. Berlin gave a  pre-progress report for the Steering Committee on a process started by two stakeholder groups; 1) influential members of the business community, smaller property rights advocates, some larger developers, and realtors;  and 2) influential members of the environmentalists community.  This is the second report on the dialogues he has been having with both communities.
* Mr. Berlin feels the major focus of the dialogue has come to rest on mitigation, the concept of mitigation, mitigation banking and what is known as the mitigation toolbox. 
* He felt that he had more to offer in the form of sharing the education he has received from Sherry Barrett of the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
* There are three categories of mitigation:

1.  Acquisition whether by a bond issue, by taxes,  whether it be by a federal grant or otherwise, the county comes up with the money and buys the property at issue.  The ultimate example would be for the county just to buy the whole preserve, and the rest of the mitigation issues go out the window. 
2. On-site conservation, such as in the comprehensive land use plan.  A good example would be the 80/20 guideline that has been so controversial.  It is usually implemented through ordinances, including zoning ordinances and examples would include ordinances that govern the, or that create riparian buffers, hillside restrictions or that require surveys of habitat in order to evaluate and place, evaluate the habitat and place development in the least damaging spot on the property. 
3. Off-site conservation would be to evaluate what's being effected on the property to be developed and to replace it somewhere else on some ratio that has been predetermined, so for example, if you are upsetting one acre of some snails habitat, it may have to be mitigated on a 2 to 1 ratio, you'd have to replace it with two acres somewhere else.

* Several issues come up in implementing these:
1. The difference between the diminution of the value of a property because of mitigation requirements and the diminution in the profits that one hopes to realize from the development property.
2. How to draw the line between, diminution of value and diminution of profits, so that the county can fairly compensate those property holders whose value is being diminished by this plan.

 

* He suggested the following as a way around those issues: Draw the line at those rights that are already vested in the property.  So that value would be defined as the profit that can reasonably be expected from rights that are already vested, not from, not from, not more speculative profits that one may be, may hope to make from changing or improving those vested rights. 

* The Fish and Wildlife Service needs to know what the preserve is going to look like before it will issue a permit.  Leaving too much to be determined through alternate dispute resolutions is not acceptable to the Service.  Pima county has already done the screening of all of the properties within the preserve in order to find those properties that represent potential problem areas where vested rights may be hurt by this plan. This map would be helpful at this point because it gives definition to potential problems. This is the map that will tell us what we may have to pay for.
* The tools for mitigation include one that has been recently enacted in Pima County, which is the use of conservation subdivisions. Pima county is now working on streamlining the processes for getting permits for conservation subdivisions. Marana does not have a conservation subdivision ordinance as Pima county now does.
* Other mitigation ordinances go into how development is going to be placed on the property, hillside restrictions, riparian buffers, clustering use of the 80/20 guidelines, selecting the lowest impact areas for development within a property.  These are all available for our use and for the property owners' use. 
* In order to get the Section Ten Permit, the mitigation banking needs to be established first.  The way the mitigation banking works is that there needs to be a bank of credits on the actual acreage available to work with secured by the county as opposed to a bank full of money with which to buy property later on when its needed.
* The Service will not permit us more than one species per mitigation.  US Fish and Wildlife will provide the service of keeping a ledger; it will track what the bank is, what it's got and how many of the credits in the bank we are using.
* Once we identify the potential trouble areas that we have to pay for and the mitigation banks, we have to identify the service areas for each of these potential regional mitigation banks and then correlate each of those elements in order to develop a banking plan.  From a mitigation standpoint, what we need in an economic analysis is the cost of the banking plan.
* Once that we have that information about the cost within and whose properties are specifically going to be affected, then we need to figure out whose going to pay the cost.  The county has talked about floating a hundred million dollar bond, the county has some other assets, there's the potential for federal money, there is, everybody should share, everybody from the developers to the recreational folks to the taxpayers.

Discussion:
* Your interpretation of vested rights was exceptionally liberal and is not supported by recent judicial interpretation.

Larry:  There are two comments in response, one is that the county administrator's office has issued a letter discussing how they are going to view vested rights and I think that should be circulated to the committee, it is the clearest statements so far, second is that there are statutes on this and there are, and I don't have the clear answers tonight, there are clear answers that are available specifically with respect to what's vested.  I think the most important for us though is to look at the definitions that the county wants to use so that again we all get on the same page with everything.
·        Tell me how these mitigation areas might correlate with what Recon has identified is the biological core because this begins to define how big a core has to be, what species have to be there, etc.
 Larry:  I haven't seen the map myself yet and it's important to keep in mind the distinction between the core areas and the multiple use areas, the other side of the coin from what you're asking about and to recognize that I believe that the mitigation banks need to sort of address both.  My sense, and Sherri, please with any of this where I'm mistaken, straighten me out here, my sense is that for the most part we're going to be best off using core areas, areas within the core for the regional mitigation banks because they will give us the biggest bang for our buck and going to have the most restrictions on them anyway. 
·        Value is not inherent only in either zoning and or planning designations. Biological value is a value, you don't have to lose property value just because you are in the core or because you have biologically valuable land.
Larry:  Chris, you're absolutely right.  And I want to clarify just a little bit further on how value is going to be defined.  The context in which I'm addressing it is the context in which property holders will need to be compensated for diminution in value.  In those situations, and there will be many, in which value is increased as a result of the plan, then obviously you don't need to compensate for that.  In those, givings is ok, it's not just takings.  Yes.
·        Are you going to organize this, finalize it into a document?
Larry:  I hope so.  In fact I've recently had some discussions on the business side of it to be effective, that once we all can get on the same page in terms of the mitigation tools and processes, that even though we're not going to be able to agree to a lot of the details until we know what the costs are and whose properties are going to be affected by it, we can agree, I hope and believe we can agree to the principles that we're going to have to implement here and as soon as we get anywhere close to that, then I hope that the parties that I'm working with will allow be to start working on a draft of it and get a statement of principles that all of these folks can sign on to that we can then present to the steering committee.
·        Do three or more species constitute a core?
Larry:  The mitigation, for the mitigation work, we're going to have to identify individual species by species.  Whose habitat is being affected, how is it being affected, and what ratio are we going to have to replace it or whatever tools can we use to mitigate.  Different tools will apply to different species, for example, it's relatively easy to mitigate some kinds of snails because they're going to, because of the way they live, whereas the Pima pineapple cactus is much more difficult because, because putting roads in and, fragmentation of the property is very damaging to them.  So different mitigation tools can be applied for different species.
Call to the Public:
·        How is the value determined? And is this a land speculator's dream?
Larry:  As for the last part, the land speculator's dream, I don't think so.  I think that where the negotiation needs to take place is on where the line gets drawn for everybody, between diminution and value and diminution in what I'm going to call for the moment speculative profits. And how to draw that line can be very complex, as you know, but I think that once that's negotiated, the rest of that is ministerial.
 
Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan Issues Matrix:
The Steering Committee had asked stakeholder groups to lay out the framework of their preferred alternative proposal to the full Steering Committee.  The matrix shows the issues that Steering Committee members did or didn't want to see addressed in the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan and in the preferred alternative.  Presently there are only two stakeholder groups noted on the matrix, but more will be added as more stakeholder groups make presentations.
Discussion:
·        Point of clarification-- this is not just The Coalition for the Sonoran Desert Protection, it is also the Nature Conservancy, the Sonoran Institute, The Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection and the Tortalita Residents.
* This will be a helpful tool when it comes time to develop the final recommendation.

 
Future Meeting Schedule:
At the last Ad Hoc meeting there was a significant discussion about the Steering Committee's meeting schedule. The following proposals were presented to the Steering Committee.
* Suspend activities for the summer. Reconvene in September when there will be a much better idea of who the economics consultant is, be in a much better position to work on stakeholder presentations and be able to focus to developing a preferred alternative recommendation. 
* Continue to meet and when there are no issues for which to meet, cancel that particular meeting, but at least hold the spaces open and available.

 
The following schedule was proposed and accepted by the Steering Committee:
* Suspend Steering Committee meetings until September 4, 2002.

* In October, December we should come to closure on draft preferred alternative recommendations for economic analysis. Given the fiscal constraints, the Steering Committee will have to come up with a certain number of alternatives to be analyzed in addition to the no action and the preferred biologically preferred alternatives.
* Not very likely that there will be an Economic Analyst available by December. Assuming this tentative schedule works out, these proposals would be analyzed economically from December to January. The Steering Committee would come back and consider the results of that in February and be in a position to agree on a final preferred alternative recommendation. 
* Give the County a March 1st deadline.
* The amount of time the Steering Committee has will be filled even without a deadline.  The Steering Committee should go back to the county and say we want to be done with this process by March 1st and provide them the preferred alternative recommendations.  If the new economic consultant does the same thing Morrison did, that's a circumstance that's going to change and the Steering Committee will have to reevaluate the deadline.  Being  a legislative body, the Steering Committee is not bound by their previous decisions, because they can always make other decisions. 

·        If the meetings are to be suspended until September 4th then stakeholder groups should show up on the 4th with their very specific stakeholder proposals. This should be hard deadline.
·        A suggestion was made to hold an Open House on June 15th and invite members of the AZ Legislature, however this will be suspended until after the elections when there may be new members of the state legislature that might be eager and earnest to come to the meetings.
 
·        At the September 14th study session members of the public, that are sponsored by  a member of the steering committee can make a presentation. They will receive the same amount of time that the other stakeholder groups have been getting. 
·        A schedule has not been set for the Ad-Hoc meetings, but a date in August will be selected and a location will be provided well in advance.
 
Course of Action: Stakeholders be prepared by September 4, 2002, to provide specific preferred alternative proposals for consideration, then we can start reconciling the issues of difference in the Fall.
 
 
Issues for future meeting agendas and new business:
There were no stakeholder groups prepared to make presentations on May 18th and the Steering Committee voted to convert that meeting to a field trip to the Empire Ranch.  While some members thought this should happen sooner there were other members that felt this would be better left for the cooler months.
Course of Action:  The May 18th meeting would be converted to a field trip. Cancellation notices would be duly posted with the county along with a Field trip Notice.
 
 
Call to the Public:
·        I am concerned that the Steering Committee is not considering a combined or a union of the 55 species and the 8 species proposal or alternatives so that you have sufficient land mass for both of those groups.
 
Meeting Adjourned 11:30 am