DRAFT
SDCP - Steering Committee
Sheraton Four Points
6:00pm to 9:00pm
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
Meeting Notes
Participants: Maeveen Beham, Sherry Barrett, Paul Fromer via telephone, David Steele. See attached sign in sheet.
Documents made available to the Steering Committee members at the study session:
* Agendas
* CD from County titled: Cooperative Agreements
* E-mail from Judie Scalise of ESI
* Motions by Jonathan DuHamel
* Draft Outline of Steering Committee report to Board of Supervisors.
* Recommendations from Agricultural Landowners
* ADR Provision in Growing Smarter
Meeting Commenced at 6:35 pm
Meeting commenced with 22 Steering Committee members and 7 members of the general public. David Steele opened the meeting by introducing himself, reviewing the ground rules and reviewing the agenda.
Logistics for the next Steering Committee Meeting:
Saturday, March 1, 2003
8:30am to 11:30 am
Pima County Public Works Building, Rm. 'C'
201 North Stone
Logistics for the next Ad-Hoc Subcommittee meeting:
Friday, February 26, 2003
Immediately following the Steering Committee meeting.
Administrative Matters:
· There have been no further changes to the Steering Committee membership.
· David was working with the Pima County GIS department in trying to get a CD with the GIS maps for members. A sign-up sheet was circulated so members could receive their cd.
Old Business:
Assumptions used in economic analysis: The Steering Committee was given a copy of the email communiqué from Judie Scalise of ESI stating that they would not be meeting with the County until the latter part of March. Therefore this item was deferred to a later date.
Status of Key Decisions and Schedule for their consideration:
* David provided a draft outline of the report that reflects the latest agreements that were made at the last meeting.
* The final report will have an appendix with the minutes which will have the more detailed information.
* Scope of Plan: These are the key decisions based upon David's conversations with Maeveen Behan and Sherry Barrett on what the County is looking for from the Steering Committee.
* Duration of the Plan: This was addressed in the motion that the Steering Committee adopted on February 1st. The "Species Covered" by the MSHCP was discussed on February 1st, however there is still some ongoing dialogue.
Stakeholder discussions:
Presentation from Agricultural Landowners Stakeholder Group:
Mary Miller: Some of the agricultural landowners prepared a document. You'll see that there's a number of points on this document where we were trying to work with the ideas that the "X Group" was working on. You'll find that the majority of new things have to do with ideas about how to use agricultural ranch lands as part of mitigation. We're very interested in setting up some sort of a conservation easement program that will contribute to that and we've put quite a few details down on paper as to, you know, some of the principles that we think would be important to have that work. And I'm not going to go through them, you can read them for yourselves.
But I guess I kind of wanted to be a little bit emotional and personal about this for just a moment. Our ranch is a 10,000 acre ranch. It's down here in the middle of this green biological core area. It's called Elkhorn Ranch. It's about a third privately owned, mostly then state and a little bit of BLM. It's a really beautiful place and people pay us a lot of money to come visit it. We have a guest ranch and we also raise horses. It's right smack in the middle of this biological core. We're ranchers, we're also property owners. We're interested in having there be programs where we can see all this open country stay in productive economic use and also be part of this protection scheme. I'm standing up here telling you very firmly that, to use Maeveen's words, the carrot approach will work better with us than the stick. And we are very concerned about how regulation will affect us. Carolyn and I had some conversation about that on the phone this afternoon. And I think it's an area where we all have a lot of confusion, fear, more discussion to be had. We've got to keep that up. But it's just, I think it's a really important thing that we look at incentives and we as landowners who might in some, I mean you could be dealing with me someday or you could be dealing with me when I try to buy a ranch in the valley. You could be dealing with my daughters who are trying to keep our ranch. I don't know. But we're trying to create some mechanisms where you can keep these agricultural lands in production and also be part of this conservation equation. Because believe me, conservation is happening out there. So we hope you'll take these ideas seriously. We're trying to be a constructive part of this. I know we have a lot of discussion to be had about regulation, number of species. We're out there working with endangered species compliance to do the things we already do today. And we understand as landowners that it's a very onerous and a big deal to be dealing with endangered species compliance. So we're not just whining out of this based on theory. We've been doing it. I think that a lot of the points we make can be applied to David's draft on page 3, section 4, section, line 25. I think that some of the points in our document could be integrated into that quite easily and that's about all I have to say
Questions from Steering Committee members:
Question: . What are the fears that you referred to in your document?
Mary: If you try to zone us, if you try to make it so that I as a landowner cannot develop through zoning, through more sort of what I think of as issue-specific regulations. We've got a hillside, we've got a riparian, we've, let's add an owl, let's add a "this", let's add a "that". All of a sudden you look at my property and it doesn't have anymore development value. I may not want to develop it, but (a) someday my kids may have to, (b) if I want to play in this mitigation game, I'd like to have something to sell. I truly believe that my ranch has a lot of value to me from an agricultural perspective, making money on it the way we currently do. I also truly believe that it has a lot of public value. And if the public wants to keep that public value intact, I think it's not unreasonable for me as a landowner to make some money on that. But if you zone or regulate away that value, I have nothing to sell you for conservation. So we don't want to have sort of, we don't want to have that development value regulated away from us before we have a chance to do something with it. I think if we could keep zoning the same, that's step one. But I do believe that as we look, and I think this is kind of where the source of Pat's concerns about the number of species lay. We learned a lot about HCP's ourselves lately. We've been working on some related to agricultural practices burning that Sherry referred to. And you have to make sure that with all the things that are going to go on on the land, that the needs of the critters are being addressed. And that's a complex game. And I think that the discussion, I'm losing my train of thought We're very, we're skeptical. I can't wait to see the details. I think we'll all have an easier time when we have specifics to be dealing with instead of kind of arguing from our positions of fear.
You might focus on the back, the second page. I had meant for "the following guidance regarding a mitigation program utilizing purchase of conservation easements on agricultural land". If you look at the points underneath that, there's about 8 of them. Those are some of the specific principles that we feel would help make a program like this work on ranch land. And I would kind of envision that some of those specifics perhaps could be added to David's outline. And those might be the areas that you really look carefully at. I think you'll find that much of what's on the front page is trying to connect and achieve some consensus with others and also trying to make sure that everybody makes sure where we're coming from, which I'm sure we're all spending a lot of time doing that. But I think the real meat is on the back of the, is on the second page. I don't think it's real controversial stuff, but it's things that would provide the kind of, it would make the carrot more orange I guess and make it something that landowners might be able to work with. That's what we were trying to think through. We were trying to imagine if we were going to do this, what might we need to see. Just to share, too, a lot of these ideas, Sherry did talk with us and so we did air some of these ideas with her and that doesn't make them any more right or wrong, but we haven't just ginned these up all by ourselves.
Maeveen: Just to ground the discussion in how eastern Pima County will take issues of mitigation, and the real issue that's before the Steering Committee which is who should bear the cost? That's really the issue. And put it on the map. I just wanted to show this map to you and I don't know if I can get any help holding it up so I can point to it. But what you see here is, now the question is, who pays? Okay? That's the question before us. And the down-zoning issue is, you know, institutional reserve, you're in the middle of a national monument. I don't see that creeping into a lot of places and taking the zoning potential down more, but I don't see down-zoning as the issue so much as if I were in your shoes I'd be asking, in the answering of the question "who pays?", what legal mechanisms are available to the county to make sure it doesn't disproportionately land on the people who are holding the high value habitat. That's the question I would be asking. Not imagining that new laws will come that will hurt you, but to look at the existing laws and see how they will apply.
So if you look at this map you can get an idea of what land will be developed. And you can start with the principal, and I'll only take a minute on this but I just think it might help take some of the irrelevant part and some of the fear out of this conversation. Pima County, unincorporated Pima County has the authority to have impact fees only in the form of transportation. That's it. That's it. We have a native plant ordinance that requires on-site mitigation and it has a cash in lieu option. And you may look at that cash and say, well there's a fee, there's a generation of fee, and there's survey requirements already attached to that. And these are the kinds of things that ranchers aren't dealing with right now but that those who are not necessarily in the CLS are dealing with. So when I look at the land that is likely to be developed before we step a toe in the CLS, you can see the areas and it mostly belongs to the City of Tucson. Has been annexed by the City of Tucson, Marana or Sahuarita. So Pima County's constraints and also Pima County's conservation ethic, neither of those apply, neither of those apply. Those are regional issues that we'll have to work out with the city, with Marana, with Sahuarita as we all negotiate our HCP so it makes sense regionally.
But the question I would be asking is, if there is a, if you talk in terms of mitigation ratios, what you're saying is, the landowner pays. If you talk in terms of bond what you're saying is the system, exaggerating, the cost is spread across the tax base. And when I look at this map and I say mitigation ratios in unincorporated Pima County, who's the landowner? Who's the landowner? And that's what I would be saying as a rancher. It's me. So if you have this kind of exclusive focus on mitigation ratios, the thing to understand is Pima County's limited in its ability to impose traditional impact fees. That doesn't mean this won't be annexed by the city and a different set of rules will kick in. But let's start there. And then I become concerned with, have we just written off any unincorporated land that isn't in the CLS, it's essentially under no restrictions. The people who developed that land aren't contributing to the reserve at all, it's just a race to the bottom with that land. I've never heard that conversation and I think that's a real issue. We're not Clark County. In Clark County they had authority and a political will to impose an across-the-board impact fee on the conversion of every acre of land.
In Pima County we're limited in our authority specifically when we take a legislative act, when we grant someone more rights than they currently have. We can ask them to do things and we call it an exaction. And the exaction can be a condition that's related to the impact. So when someone comes and says, I own one house per 4 acre land, I would like to get greater density here, the county can turn around say, we'd like to see a number of things happen. And that's part of the, you get something that you weren't entitled to, we get something, too. And that looks different with every zoning. But in general you could say, you could make the recommendation that you'd like to see conservation achieved as a condition of the rezoning as an exaction. You'd like to see conservation achieved in some way. You can translate it then to the language of mitigation ratios, you can translate it into the language of open space.
But the question still comes, if you are relying exclusively on that as your mechanism, guess who's paying. And that's really what we need to hear from the Steering Committee. We know at the county what our legal rights are, what we can and can't do. But what we don't know is what does the community think is a fair apportionment of this burden. And I haven't heard the Steering Committee say that. A bond would spread it across the tax base more generally, other mechanisms might. But the mitigation ratio which may be the fairest mechanism in a place that has more authority than Pima County may not have the same effect on individual landowners here. And that's all I want to suggest is, I hear people talk about mitigation ratios, when Paul talked and I love his thinking, but what he was really suggesting is that we had more authority than we do and that we would achieve the reserve through a mitigation ratio that accomplished the protection of that many acres.
And when I look at the map what I say is, most of the land that's not in the CLS is out of the jurisdiction of the county so we can't make recommendations, we have hopes for it but we can't make recommendations for that. And what we're really talking about then is unincorporated land and most of it in the CLS and there's a decision point for the Steering Committee about whether you want to speak to unincorporated land that's not in the CLS and what the burden might be there. The way I would go at this if I were you is to say, are there willing conservationists in this area and what will it take for them to conserve the land? And that's where the incentives come in. So say, well I need help with, this is what I need to stay there, this is what I need to improve the conditions, this is what I need to sell off part of the right. Whatever the level of willingness is, it has a price tag on it and it's not that many questions to ask. It's 30 in Altar Valley and 15 or 7 up here. It's not that many questions to ask. And we have 50 years to do it. But that's an approach that not only tells you what the price tag is, lets the market control how that plays out and suggests to the county how to go about getting the money. And essentially how to prioritize.
Those are just considerations I wanted to put in front of you. We're not Clark County. We're not San Diego. And when we go to figure out who should pay, don't make that a pie in the sky. Don't make that, well let's put it on the developers because the developers are either going to be in the city of Tucson or in the non-CLS area which you may be silent on that issue, or they may be, you know, people who really would prefer not to develop if the conversation took more of a turn towards how to make this work and incentive basis. That's all I'm suggesting.
Eastern Pima County is 2.4 million acres. The CLS is 2 million acres. So there's 400,000 acres for development that the science community says, that can go, that can be impacted, and you see what it is, it's everything that's not green or blue. That can be impacted and we can still have this potential reserve that works. So when you look at how much land within this 400,000 is developable, it's half of it. It's half of it. Most of that is not in Pima County's jurisdiction. So all I'm suggesting is, you know, that could take us all the way to build-out. That land could take us all the way to build-out. If that's what we developed. But the rules that you suggest and that the county or the approaches that this body suggests, I don't want you to miss that as a potential mitigation option, and there are ways to get at that land through rezoning, through the existing native plant, and those are ways to achieve conservation. But you may suggest that they achieve conservation in the reserve. Or maybe you don't want that approach. But I'm just trying to make this real to us, make this conversation real to us.
Question: If Mary decides to borrow against her ranch or even sell it, she can't right now, right? Because of being in a core or it's down-zoning in effect because the market isn't working for her now.
Maeveen: No, there's not been any down-zoning. This map actually honors the existing right. And not only that, it suggests that in some time in the future, the Board's going to make a decision to vest more financial rights in that land. That's what the light green area suggests, that there's going to be an up-zoning. Today people have a certain zoning. There no suggestion that that's going to be taken away. There's actually a suggestion within the CLS that development's going to happen and there's going to be up-zonings. So I don't know if people really thought that through. But if I were on the, had the interest of conserving this land, I'd want to say, well how do we get there first then and conserve it and how do we get that money and how do we put that land in line to conserve it and how do we deal with the landowner so that they want to do that, too. Those are the questions I would be having. But I think it's a little bit pie in the sky to talk exclusively about mitigation ratios when you see who they would hit here, what they would or wouldn't achieve. And what you're missing. The conversation you're not having that I think you need to be having to achieve the conservation plan.
Pat King: The reason we concentrated so much on conservation easements also is our little district out there has had a big loss of private property. And our school districts are seeing the results of that. And so we who live in the district are very concerned about loss of private property, schools, fire department, their income comes from property taxes. And if we keep losing private property, the remaining property owners are saddled with a heavier load. And so in that respect that pushes them out as well. And that's why we concentrated so much on conservation easements.
Lynn Harris: Most of you don't know exactly where I stand, but I'd like to give you a little bit of history and a thought concerning some of the things that the county and governmental agencies have done to the ?? of your people. This area right here, the white areas, classified local use is our ranch. And our families have lived there over a hundred years. We have tried to protect the place and I think we've done a pretty good job of it. We don't make our living on the ranch at all. We're in a contracting business because the ranch won't support us. But our families live there and I consider those mountains home. Our families have come back after retirement and such to the point where we have a community of about a hundred families now. And we have diligently tried to keep the nucleus of our community small to preserve the open space. Over time we have fought with the county over and over again every time we want a permit. We'd like to keep it down one acre per house. Its zoned RH right now.
But they, right on top of the highest peak, the highest peak is split. Half of it's private land and half of it's BLM. A number of years ago, probably about 25 years ago, the BLM people gave a portion of the high peak to the city of Nogales or the people that were going to serve Nogales with cable TV. Where they put up a big antenna, they put up a tower, etc. We were against that but of course we didn't know about any of it, there was no hearing, nothing was open until it was a done deal. And then the county set up a site of their own, the tower and the buildings, for their communications on this government land. And they made another swap, another acre to AT&T. Eventually we decided that we should try to do a, build a tower of our own or at least go into business as a communications business in the tower business. We got a permit, we did build a tower, and we saturated our tower with dishes.
Since then, not too awful long ago we wanted to build another tower because there's a need, we're living in a day and age of communication. So we're not trying to exploit the land, we're not trying to make a development. But it's a power cycle that was created by the government. When time comes and we get a permit for this new tower, we find that the county has come up with numerous new regulations which prohibit us from building it. So we went down and we got two of the Board of Supervisors to come up and look at our site. You let all these other folks come up, there's about 10 different agencies up there that's on BLM land. Why won't you give us a permit? And the new regulations the county has come up with have been very detrimental. One of the regulations is that to build a tower for communications of any sort, the land can't be more than 15% slope. That means that you can't build on top of any mountain. So we had to have a waiver and we had to come up with several to try to get a permit. Then those (inaudible) if the Board of Supervisors would clean up their debris(?). This is already a narrow site, it's (inaudible). The end of the ?? was, down in the offices there, we can't give you a permit because this is a commercial venture and you would make money off of it. They wouldn't want to give us a variance for something like that. How do they figure that a person was going to be able to pay taxes to protect his profit. It's still mind boggling. We have a piece of private property up there and we've been working close to a year trying to get a permit. We have businesses that would like to go up and utilize the tower.
And this kind of goes along with some of the fears that the ranchers have or the rural people. We don't have a great deal of money or we could take them to court probably and get it ended. As far as ranching goes, in the last 3 years the droughts are terrible. And we've done what ranchers do. Our cattle herd is less than half what it was 3 years ago, just because of the land. So by regulation we've been hurt recently by the county. That's my point. I just want you to try to understand where we're coming from.
Stakeholder Discussions Continued:
Presentation from the Mining Stakeholder Group:
Jonathan DuHamel: This proposal has to do with potential conflict down the road between county and state trust lands. I presume there may come a time when the county wants to purchase state trust lands. Much of the state trust lands in eastern Pima County have mineral rights or the potential for mineral rights. So my proposal is that the county look at the mineral maps. And if there is a reasonable alternative, they just avoid purchasing the state land that's got mineral potential. This will probably be cheaper for the county because if they try to acquire lands (inaudible) may have competition ?? And it's possible that a land company could just pick up prospecting (inaudible). So it's just a consideration to look at the future of the ?? of the county and yet using the land for conservation. That's proposal number one. The second one has to do with our ability to mine things like sand and gravel aggregate. Because for a lot of people right now that's not permitted here in the city of Tucson. So I would like the county again to consult with the ?? industry and agree on some sorts of where they can mine some of these things. And unfortunately sand and gravel come from riparian areas or floodplains. And I understand (inaudible) Marana used to do that (inaudible).
ADR's in the context of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan.
· David noted that at the January 22nd study session Steve Betts mentioned that Growing Smarter had an ADR alternative process. During the research of this item David was informed by the Department of Commerce that in areas of dispute it establishes the presumption that the takings have to be for a beneficial purpose, and in areas where there is some dispute it requires the Board of Supervisors to appoint a hearing officer to review the matter.
· The Ad Hoc Committee asked David to contact the county's hearing officer, but he was informed by the Department of Commerce that hearing officers are appointed on a case by case basis, whenever there's an issue that comes before them.
Call to the Public:
Pete Tesicione: How do you address what already developed properties can do once it becomes pygmy owl habitat or, you know, once it's finalized. Because what you will do there will portend what people can anticipate would happen with the Conservation Land System for the 55 species. Is that true or not true or what?
Sherry: No, the critical habitat does include some areas that are already developed and that's purely a mechanism of our ability to map finer scale. But those areas that are in the midst of being developed, they're not critical habitat, they don't have any habitat complaints. They're not within the 1.2 acres but they're not critical habitat unless they actually have habitat on it. Again, the (inaudible) factors our inability to cookie-cutter out (inaudible) process. Because they have to legally define each of their lines that they draw by leaps and bounds. So it becomes very problematic to draw around absolutely every development that's out there. So by definition, as a rule we say that areas that have no habitat because they're not critical habitat.
Development of Steering Committee Recommendations:
Integration of Endangered Species Act Section 7 and Section 10 related to the MSHCP, Sherry Barrett, Field Supervisor, US Fish & Wildlife and Paul Fromer, RECON Consultants:
Paul: I think that in practice when you're dealing with Section 10 versus Section 7 versus the listing of critical habitat, that they all wind up pretty much in the same place in the end. And in general they're made to be consistent by the Fish & Wildlife Service through the Section 7 process. And I think that maybe the most important point is that in practice, the way that I have seen it work is that critical habitat and the HCP Section 10 permit are generally consistent. But in the end, the action that occurs last, or if there were critical habitat designated and then a 10-A permit came along, the Fish & Wildlife Service does a Section 7 consultation on that 10-A permit. And that 10-A permit is what holds sway. So that is the document that winds up being the guiding document because it is a contract between the Fish & Wildlife Service and the project applicants. So I think that in practice that is what we need to be most considered with, in respect, we need to consider both. In reality, they're all going to wind up being in about the same place. And I think that clearly Sherry can amplify on that. We talked about it and I think we're very much in agreement as to what the implications are.
Sherry Barrett: Well, Paul and I are working on putting this down on paper so you can better understand the issues that if critical designated prior to the Habitat Conservation Plan, we address it. And then it won't require any further mitigation. If critical habitat is designated after the Habitat Conservation Plan is approved and permitted, hopefully we have addressed all the habitat needs of those species, which is the goal of a multi-species regional conservation plan anyway. And we can probably be able to put it in as a foreseen changed circumstance and cite that there's not going to be further mitigation needed.
Questions from Steering Committee members:
Question: if the critical habitat is designated after the permit is issued, would there be additional mitigation required?
Sherry: If we do a good job and we address the habitat needs of the species, then we could put it as what we call a "changed circumstance" under the "no surprises" rule and cite that there should not be a need for any further mitigation. That's provided that we do a comprehensive robust plan.
Paul: Right. And I think that it would be fairly clear that any species that was permitted by the HCP would have to have a, there would have to actually be an unforeseen or a dramatically changed circumstance for the Service to ask for something other than what was included in the HCP from a habitat standpoint, even if critical habitat is designated. So I think, you know, there's no guarantee that that's the case but I think that that's clear that that is the way that it would be and has been in practice.
Question: If there is a critical habitat designated already and then an MSHCP is overlaid on it, will Fish & Wildlife Service as part of their approval process, do a Section 7 consultation on the MSHCP? So if they deem it satisfactory pursuant to Section 7, then Section 7, as Paul suggested, the MSHCP then holds sway?
Paul: Yes
Sherry: That's correct. In fact we have to address the critical habitat.
Because a few members voiced confusion over issues that had been previously explained by US Fish and Wildlife and other Steering Committee members, Sherry Barrett and Paul Fromer offered to write a paper addressing these concerns again so as to better clarify these issues for those members who have had difficulty in understanding.
Sherry: What we need to make sure is when we do the Section 7 consultation on the issuance of the permit, we need to make sure that critical habitat through this program would not be adversely modified or destroyed. But that doesn't mean that you can't ever build on any critical habitat. What it means is that each of those critical habitat units still need to be able to function in the manner in which it was established. So it would mean that we have to address this whole permit the same we would as an individual project that's being developed inside critical habitat. That doesn't mean the project can't go forward. We just have to make sure it's being done in a manner that allows for that area to continue to function for the owl. Which we do all the time up in northwest Tucson in particular. So in this regard, we would look at a lot of developments that would be proposed that some of it may be inside the critical habitat. That's not going to be and it never has been an absolute boundary that nothing can occur in. We just need to make sure that the permit issued program now can go forward in a manner that still retains the value of the critical habitat for the pygmy owl and still allows those different units to function the way they're supposed to under the rule.
Question: Will property owners have to mitigate their potential habitat for any or all of the 55 species?
Sherry: Yes.
Question: Are these three scenarios correct:
One, if there is no MSHCP. If we simply stay as we stay now.
Two, if there is an MSHCP that is on a habitat basis and that covers the 55 species. Three, if there is a species specific approach that covers the 8 species.
Is the understanding correct that for most areas other than the critical areas which are connector areas or river basin areas, that the 55 species habitat approach would be less restrictive for more landowners than the 8 species approach?
Paul: Based on our evaluation of those plans, that's correct. Based on the maps, and that's why it would be easier to show this or explain this in person using the mapping that we developed for our analysis. But that is correct.
Mitigation Ratios:
David Steele and Paul Fromer discussed this issue with Maeveen Behan and Sherry Barrett gave a presentation at the last meeting regarding this issue. The following are additional comments from Paul Fromer:
Paul: My basic philosophy on this is that when we're doing a plan like this, regional scale plan, what would be most valuable to do is take a look at what we expect to be the total impact, meaning what area would be developed as far out into the future as we can see. And take a look at what that impact is. How much of different kinds of habitat are lost. At the same time, look at what we think is going to be the necessary habitat for a conservation plan and then from that figure out what we already have conserved. And the goal then is to add to what we already have conserved that which is necessary to implement the plan, and use what is going to be developed to generate that land. So from that essentially falls out your mitigation ratios. And it matches exactly what you really need to do to accomplish the overall conservation goal. Now that isn't the way it has really been looked at in most areas because they haven't had the luxury of trying to do that. And it's arbitrary rules of 2 to 1, 4 to 1, 6 to 1, whatever has been applied for losses does not necessarily lead to accomplishing what is the result, which is a reserve system that makes sense. So that's where I would start from. That requires a little bit more analysis from our standpoint but I think that that's the way I would like to at least begin the discussion. That's the way we would like to accomplish it in the end of the program, that we have done it that way. We'll have to figure out whether or not that makes sense from a feasible standpoint, economically or otherwise. But at this point I will suggest that as my starting point. As an interim step, we do need to figure out how to prioritize what we accomplish in the interim.
Questions from Steering Committee members:
Question: Is it possible for recommendations to be given to us to study which show maps of different areas and the ratios, mitigation ratios, that might be most appropriate for each area within the map?
Paul: Right, I think that's a good suggestion. Maybe a little more definition and direction will be useful.
Question: Have you and staff in any way looked at this before and maybe have begun prioritizing and have an idea of what mitigation ratios should be where? Or haven't started?
Paul: I think prioritization is a very important step. We have looked at that. We have a, clearly based on some prioritization ideas, that's how we came up with our species specific priorities for the reserve system. So I think that what we call the biological core areas, what we need now is to look at that and find a resolution. I know that there are people who have started doing that. I see that as a potential task for the science commission or perhaps another task for the science technical advisory team in consultation with the RECTAT and the ranching community, the ranch advisory team. I think that there is some real important technical work that needs to be done. And I know that there are those who have been looking at that already who we can certainly borrow on some of the work that they've already got. I don't think we have developed specific mitigation ratios for any of those areas. The county came up with a set of guidelines that are in the comp plan which took into consideration the discussions that we had in the stats as to relative importance and relative to need for portions of conservation. But that's as far as we've gotten at this point.
Question: Is it feasible for the Steering Committee to anticipate that at some stage we can have maps demonstrating recommendations for different mitigation ratios depending on the environmental sensitivity of the areas in each map?
Paul: Yeah, I think that that has to be part of our proposal. So it should be a task that we work on in the very near future. I mean, that's one of the key elements that's going to be necessary for implementation of any proposed HCP that we do.
Maeveen Behan: You've been seeing the maps all along. It's the Conservation Land System. You have several examples back against the wall. You have core, multiple use, riparian, and that's what we're talking about. So this is the map right here and the guidelines that attach to it are about ?? the comprehensive plan. That's what we're referring to. What I'm making reference to is the Conservation Land System works within the current zoning and so the starting point of it is to respect the existing entitlements and then to match a percent open space against what the science team had formulated as the species needs at that point. That's how that came about. And so what Paul was talking about was the biological ideal which doesn't consider the county's legal authority or the underlying entitlement. So that's why I point to this map and say we really have thought through legal authority, existing entitlement, species needs, and you see that reflected on the CLS. And Paul was getting at it a different way and kind of, we can look at that map but the next conversation is in what way would that be achievable. So that's the ideal and reality that I was trying to point out by saying you have definitely seen these maps and there's method that went into creating them. Paul and I talked today and what we didn't get to in this conversation is that, I think Paul and Sherry will agree, that 80% or if the core built out at one house per 4 acres, you would not have an effective reserve. You would not have an effective reserve. And so there's a degree of take in the CLS itself. Something that doesn't really occur to people is the CLS actually assumes that the multiple use will be up-zoned. That there will be a granting of greater entitlement than currently exists with the landowner in the multiple use. And that's another way of supporting Paul and Fish & Wildlife's concern that the CLS as it exists today, if it were to build out, it would not be an effective reserve. So what the CLS is is a reflection of current land entitlement, what the county can do legally and what the first pass of the science committee's wishes were already adopted in the comprehensive plan. The next job is prioritize acquisition or protection and make the vision of the CLS turn that into actual conservation. One of the practical mechanisms come to my mind like bond. So it's what mix of mitigation and bond is legally feasible. And that's the conversation I think would be very valuable. I think it's a great exercise to say would we need a 20 to 1 mitigation ratio to achieve the reserve. But the question arises, do we have authority to do that and what does that do to the existing landowner's rights. So that's all I'm suggesting is that you have seen these maps, they originated with 3 interests in mind: legal authority, existing entitlement and the best knowledge we had at the time from the stat teams. And that's how those maps and those numbers came together. So I don't mind looking at this many different ways, but I just want to suggest that we work within some of the constraints of this community already to get to these kinds of proposals.
Future meeting schedules and issues for future meeting agendas and new business:
* If there is need for an additional meeting then it should be on Saturday April 5th so the ranchers can more easily attend.
Call to the Public:
Pete Tescione: Real quickly. There's still this concern about when you overlap the 8 species map and the 55 species map, it appears from my preliminary assessment that there are areas excluded from the 55 species map that appear to be instrumental in the 8 species map, particularly in riparian areas in the San Pedro Valley. And I would urge the Steering Committee to look more closely into that and perhaps contemplate a hybrid of the two maps for Conservation Land System and core areas, critical habitat or whatever. Thank you
Meeting Adjourned:
9:05pm