Vista preservation effort inches along

By: JENNIFER KABBANY - Staff Writer | Saturday, February 14, 2004 9:34 PM PST ∞

VISTA ---- Playing catch-up with its neighbors, Vista officials have completed a preliminary plan outlining how the city will conserve about 660 acres of native plant and animal habitat.

The Multiple Habitat Conservation Program joins Vista with Carlsbad, Encinitas, Escondido, Oceanside, San Marcos and Solana Beach in an effort to preserve large patches of wild lands for threatened and endangered plants and wildlife from Escondido to the coast.

"It helps species by taking a holistic view of conservation," said Jane Hendron, spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Office in Carlsbad. "Instead of trying to save areas little bit by little bit ... by looking at conservation planning on a macro level we can do more to help secure species over the long-term."

Vista and six other North County cities prepared the habitat conservation "subarea plans" as part of an overall effort to set aside 20,000 acres for endangered species in the county. All seven plans are works in progress and none of the cities have had their plans officially approved by the Fish and Wildlife Service.

While the six other cities made drafts of their plans public some 2 1/2 years ago, a rough draft of Vista's plan wasn't turned in to the Fish and Wildlife Service until late January. The delay almost threatened potential development in the city. A Vista official cited a lack of money and plain old "lagging" for the delay.

Before Vista releases the plan to the public, the city and the wildlife agency will go over its details to ensure it meets the agency's standards, said John Conley, a planning division official. That will likely take about a year, at which point the city will release the plan to the public for review, he said.

Vista's plan

Although it has not been released to the public, Vista's plan does include some basic conservation concepts. In Vista, three main stretches of natural habitat are identified in the plan as places to conserve. The areas are located mainly along Agua Hedionda Creek, Buena Vista Creek and La Mirada Canyon, Conley said.

"It preserves the larger connected areas of habitat in the city so that you can develop the smaller sort of segregated pieces," Conley said.

Plants and animals mentioned in Vista's subarea plan include the Coastal California Gnatcatcher, Quino Checkerspot Butterfly, Arroyo Southwestern Toad and the Stevens Kangaroo Rat, Conley said.

These animals considered endangered species by the federal government and the plan will address methods to ensure their survival is maintained.

When it comes to funding the plan and its requirements, the planning division "hasn't figured it out yet, that's part of the preparation," Conley said, adding that discussion of a new development fee has occurred.

Conley also could not put a price tag on how much it is going to cost Vista to acquire the few privately owned parcels that the city intends to use as part of its protected corridors.

For all seven cities the estimated cost stands at $125 million for land acquisition, management, biological monitoring and an endowment fund to maintain the lands in perpetuity, said Janet Fairbanks with the San Diego Association of Governments, which is heading up the overall program.

Vista's cost is not one-seventh of that amount because the city is much smaller than its neighbors, Conley said. For example, Carlsbad will contribute about 6,500 acres of its 42 square miles. Oceanside has plans to save about 2,400 acres of its 42 square miles.

Vista is 17 square miles, and is setting aside about 660 acres, Conley said.

The acreage "sounds low to me but the key thing is where is it and what habitat types," said Diane Nygaard, president of the environmental activist group Preserve Calavera.

Nygaard said she was "excited" that Vista turned in its plan, and that her group is anxious to review it.

Joining the group

The regional plan outlining the rules and guidelines of the program was approved by the San Diego Association of Governments in March 2003.

City Councils must now approve their subarea plan. After that the Fish and Wildlife Service will consider each plan for final approval.

Solana Beach is not required to complete a subarea plan because that city's remaining habitat lands have already been protected, Fairbanks said.

Carlsbad is waiting for its final subarea plan to be approved by the Fish and Wildlife Service.

San Marcos' City Council approved its subarea plan, as has Escondido, according to city officials.

The other two cities have had the subarea plans available for public review since June 2001 and are in various stages of the approval process, according to officials from those cities.

"The main reason it took us so long is we didn't have the funding to prepare our plan when the other cities did," Conley said of Vista's preliminary plan.

Once Vista did find the money by having developers pay for the consultants, "our consultants took a pretty long time to prepare it ... they just lagged, frankly," he said.

Getting the plan completed is a matter of priorities, Fairbanks said.

"I don't have any authority to tell them have to do something," Fairbanks said. "Each city sets its own priorities."

Fish and Wildlife Service officials recently told the Vista planning division that they would not consider any additional proposals to authorize destruction of coastal sage scrub to make way for developments until the city turned in its plan, Conley said.

Since the agency now has the city's preliminary plan, it will consider various requests from the city to develop on land with federally protected coastal sage scrub, Hendron said.

Contact staff writer Jennifer Kabbany at (760) 631-6622 or jkabbany@nctimes.com.

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