Agencies Say City Is on Right Track
By Josh Cohen News Staff Writer
RPV -- Environmental agencies responsible for giving final approval to a plan to preserve more than 1,000 acres of open space in Rancho Palos Verdes say the city is on the right track, and they are awaiting more details from RPV officials.
As the city prepares to raise its Natural Communities Conservation Planning program from a yearlong slumber, representatives at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and State Department of Fish and Game say they like what they've seen recently from city representatives as far as preserving RPV's remaining open space.
"We recently had a meeting with [Planning Director] Joel Rojas and Keith Lenard of the [Palos Verdes Peninsula] Land Conservancy, and with what they showed us it looks like they addressed some big concerns, particularly too much development in the core habitats and keeping wildlife corridors intact," said Bill Tippets, Fish and Game's Southern California supervisor.
As reported in the Saturday, Dec. 1 issue of the Peninsula News, recent changes in plans to develop the few remaining open space areas have led to a renewed relationship between the city and environmental agencies.
"One of the areas we were very concerned about all along was the area surrounding City Hall," said Tippets. RPV council members in October denied that land, known as Upper Point Vicente Park, for use as a portion of the Long Point Resort golf course, and said portions of the park would remain as open space.
"We understand that Long Point is off the table now," said Karen Evans, assistant field supervisor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "Although we haven't actually seen a map showing what [open space] is being considered for development and what is being considered as preserve, what they showed us and what we talked about was better than previous plans."
Still, say both Evans and Tippets, there is a long way to go before the city can finalize any NCCP program.
"We're looking for a draft NCCP plan, and we haven't seen that yet," said Evans. "There are still a number of outstanding steps, but certainly the city is on the right path."
According to Rojas, the City Council last ordered NCCP planning members to study and come back with three maps designating the city's remaining open space as either preserve or development. As reported in the News, one of those maps will reflect recent changes, including large wildlife corridors at Upper Point Vicente Park and all but 75 acres of Portuguese Bend open space. The latter is based on the willingness by the owners of the land to sell their property to the city, an offer that didn't exist when the city first began the NCCP process.
Though the city owns hundreds of acres of land to be included in a NCCP, such as Barkentine and Forrestal canyons, it is still trying to come up with enough money to purchase the Portuguese Bend properties. Landowners have offered the land at $30 million, or about $39,000 per acre.
Tippets said figuring out how to fund an NCCP is all part of the process.
"As we see the [NCCP] near its final stages, part of what it will propose is a funding mechanism," said Tippets. "It will show how much money is being allocated from local, federal and state funds ... but at this point we haven't concluded anything."
Financial Support
What city and conservancy officials were hoping for was that by protecting open space within an NCCP, the environmental agencies would support state funding for the acquisition of Portuguese Bend open space. Without agency support, state funding is almost impossible to obtain, as the city discovered earlier this year.
Tippets and Evans stopped short of saying they would work to obtain the funding -- it is estimated that after private and county funds run dry, the city might still need $20 million in public funding for the purchase.
"The city is on the right track with the amount of conservation," said Tippets, "but the question is, can it actually be implemented? We haven't seen all the costs that will be born by the local share. Until we can look at all the costs objectively, nobody wants to commit to a particular cost."
Tippets said it would be "pre-decisional to say the [NCCP] would be approved," but did admit that the preliminary plan presented to him last week "is surely going to have one of the highest rates of conservation," of any NCCP he has seen.
Evans explained that while an NCCP is not necessary to preserve open space, "It is usually a more economical way for the cities and landowners to come together to preserve."
If everything goes as planned, she said, the city would ultimately end up with a NCCP permit that would allow it to take land normally set aside for development or preserve for management or emergency purposes. For example, said Evans, a landslide away from the preserve might force the city to revegetate in an area designated for preservation. Under an NCCP, the take is approved by state and federal agencies.
Explained Rojas, the importance of the NCCP is that all open space land in the city is covered under the program, and the plan designates certain portions of land for take purposes. In the past, he said, individual developments, such as Ocean Trails, or emergency work, such as is currently being done at San Ramon Canyon, forced representatives to apply for their own take permits on a project-by-project basis. The old way, said Rojas, was both costly and time-consuming.
"[The NCCP] is really a streamlined process for getting take permits, and we're happy if the plan is large enough and provides for endangered species," she said. "The city is giving something up and they are getting something back, and we are, too. The NCCP really lays things out in the long-term, not just project by project."
More than just a map, an NCCP, said Tippets, includes a complete study of an area's biological resources, habitat restoration, land management and financing.