Conservation News

By Frank Landis, Conservation Committee Chair

Some good news on the conservation front. Hopefully.

First, in July, the Board of Supervisors decided not to appeal the California Appellate Court ruling on June 12, so San Diego County’s Climate Action Program is history. As you may remember from last month, the problem is CAP mitigation GHG-1, which allows developers to buy offsite mitigation for emissions they produce. In Otay Ranch Village 14, for example, offsets would be used to deal with 72% of the emissions the project would create.

The second good part about this is that any project that relies on its consistency with mitigation GHG-1 to deal with its greenhouse gas emissions is automatically invalidated. A number of General Plan Amendment projects tried to get around this by coming out before the CAP was issued, and then claiming that they weren’t bound by the CAP, even though the wording of how they’re dealing with greenhouse gases is essentially identical to the CAP. This “coincidence” happened because the County issued official advice on how to deal with greenhouse gases prior to issuing that CAP itself, and oddly enough, the advice and the CAP are largely identical. It’s reasonably likely that the courts will look askance at this bit of sophistry. Unfortunately, that means that the environmental community will have to sue first to get the courts to read it in the first place.

The “hopefully” addendum to this is that the County now hasto come up with a Climate Action Plan to replace the one just thrown out. There are a couple of ways this could go, and it depends largely on what happens in the November election. If the Board of Supervisors has a more liberal majority in 2021, then County Planning will hopefully get directed to come up with an honest CAP that deals with the problem of GHG-1 through emissions reductions as much as possible. If the Republicans maintain their 3-vote majority, GHG-1 will probably be recycled and this whole thing could end up in court again. This turns, in large part, on whether Terra Lawson- Remmer unseats Kristin Gaspar in District 3 in November. Ifyou’re expecting a recommendation in that race, I can’t giveyou one. CNPS is a 501(c)(3) organization, and we cannot endorse candidates, only issues. This is simply an analysis to remind everyone reading that elections do matter, and so does your vote.

The second bit of good news is that the Board of Supervisors turned down Lilac Hills Ranch 4-1, with only Supervisor Desmond voting in favor of it. Thanks to all those who helped by emailing the Board against this project. Your comments made it clear to certain supervisors that voters across the county really did not like this project, and that the Supervisors needed to follow the will of the people who elected them.

What was interesting about this one is that County Planning & Development Services recommended that the Supervisors vote against it, and CalFire Chief Meacham, who previously was reliably pro-development, spoke out against it. It’s possible that this unusual ruling was a one-off, due to the voters voting against it in 2016 and people reminding the Supervisors of that. It’s also possible that the Chief’s change ofheart was due to the Elfin Forest Harmony Grove Town Council versus County of San Diego, which overturned the Harmony Grove Village South and Valiano developments. Part of the reason given by the judge was “[the] fact that the Fire Marshall concluded that the alternative measures are consistent with the intent of the Fire Code is not the same as saying the Project will not have a significant impact on evacuation times. Perhaps that affected the Chief’s testimony? Hopefully.

Still, this ruling was good news, not just for the Elfin Forest Community, but for the environmental community in general. One reason is that the General Plan Amendment projects we have been fighting for years tended to use similar strategies for dealing with the problems they all share: fire hazard, greenhouse gas emissions from long commutes, and (what we care about the most) loss of native plants. As these projects fall, they make it easier for judges to rule against other projects with the same problems.

In case you’re keeping score, so far, Newland Sierra was voteddown, Lilac Hills Ranch was voted down by the voters and by the Board of Supervisors, and Valiano and Harmony Grove got fused into one super-project that lost in court. CNPS is part of the coalition suing over Otay Ranch Village 14.

That leaves Otay Ranch Village 13, which was rescheduled to be heard by the Supervisors on August 5. If it gets approved by the Supervisors…well, it has the same legal deficiencies as projects that have already had problems in court, so we will see what happens. Hopefully, it will get sent back for a supplemental EIR to deal with greenhouse gas and fire problems, but it’s not wise to predict how the Supervisors will vote on this just yet.

As I noted last week, if you want to write your supervisor and ask them why they’re wasting money fighting losing legal battles instead of grappling with climate change, please do so. So far, they’re not doing very well against these challenges. Hopefully, they will change course.

Oddly enough, I’ve been pulled into a state CNPS effort torespond to a big sprawl development up in Lake County, northof Calistoga. It’s a big mixed use sprawl project, primarily withlow density housing, around vineyards and a golf course, with the major access by a two-lane canyon road. The issues are (wait for it) damage to native plants, greenhouse gas emissions from commuters, and increased wildfire risk.

Unfortunately, legal cases in San Diego County don’tdetermine what a judge in Lake County might do, but they likely will take them under advisement. So, I’m working with acoalition of CNPS conservation people scattered around thestate, because, well, we’re all dealing with the same set of issues, and we’re starting to put together a common statewide playbook of what works.

Hopefully, if it continues to lose in court, sprawl development will finally disappear from the California development playbook. I’ll believe that when I see it, but if it does, we will have issues more like what the City of San Diego is currently dealing with, or the County General Plan if it gets more actively implemented. In these, communities will work to adapt to climate change by increasing density, making it easier to get around without burning fossil fuels, and having parks and other things closer to home, so that less commuting isneeded. It’s a laudable goal.

Unfortunately for us, San Diego (City and County) weredeveloped around easy automobile commuting, so it’s going totake substantial rebuilding, rethinking, and reconnecting to make this County functional without carbon-based fuels. CNPS will continue to advocate for native plants in open spaces and around homes, but we also have to be sensitive to everyoneelse’s serious issues. Everything will need to change, and as with the pandemic, we will all have to do our share to deal with these challenges. Hopefully, we will.