(2)AR 011607 Endangered Species - Laserfiche WebLink

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Staff recognizes a need to reconcile conservation efforts by private individuals with the City's obligation under California Planning & Zoning Law to prepare and adopt a comprehensive, long-term general plan for the physical development of the City containing all of the mandatory elements required by law (California Government Code, Section 65300 et seq.). The City's General Plan is required to include, in part: "A land use element that designates the proposed general distribution and general location and extent of the uses of the land for housing, business, industry, open space, including agriculture, natural resources, recreation, and enjoyment of scenic beauty, education, public buildings and grounds, solid and liquid waste disposal facilities, and other categories of public and private uses of land. The land use element shall include a statement of the standards of population density and building intensity recommended for the various districts and other territory covered by the plan...." (Cal.Gov. Code, § 65302(a).) Staff is concerned that if private property owners encumber their properties through habitat conservation easements or other agreements, the City's long-term land use planning will be detrimentally affected. Specifically, staff is concerned that without a mechanism that identifies the level and extent of habitat conservation occurring on property, the City's General Plan and the assumptions upon which General Plan decisions are made will be obsolete and incorrect. Staff also recognizes a need to assure that persons who establish habitat conservation areas for the purpose of mitigating impacts to endangered species do so in a way that protects the species and its surrounding environment. Similarly, since habitat conservation is sometimes established to allow destruction of viable habitat elsewhere, only conservation easements that incorporate the measures necessary to protect the species should serve as mitigation for development. The conditions that motivated adoption of the original ordinance, as described above, continue to exist. In particular, (1) potential habitat for the Delhi Fly and other endangered species still exists within the City, (2) careful management of conservation habitat is still necessary to protect endangered species and the City's natural environment, (3) without a tracking mechanism, habitat conservation may still interfere with the City's on-going General Plan Update process, and (4) unsuitable property may still be designated as "habitat" to mitigate destruction of habitat elsewhere. Therefore, staff