Nature-Friendly Land Use Practices at Multiple Scales

Transcription

1 Nature-Friendly Land Use Practices at Multiple Scales rebecca l. kihslinger james m. mcelfish jr. ELI Press environmental law institute Washington, D.C.

2 Copyright 2009 Environmental Law Institute 2000 L Street NW, Washington, DC Published February 2009 All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing. Copyright is not claimed as to any part of the original work prepared by a United States government officer or employee as part of that person s official duties. Printed in the United States of America ISBN Chapter Two, Views of a Conservation Biologist by Dan Perlman, previously appeared in Lasting Landscapes: Reflections on the Role of Conservation Science in Land Use Planning, copyright Environmental Law Institute 2007, used by permission. Chapter Three, Bridging the Gap: Incorporating Science-Based Information Into Land Use Planning by Bruce Stein, previously appeared in Lasting Landscapes: Reflections on the Role of Conservation Science in Land Use Planning, copyright Environmental Law Institute 2007, used by permission.

3 Contents Acknowledgments v About the Authors vii Preface ix 1 The Scale Problem for Land Use Decisions 1 2 Views of a Conservation Biologist 23 dan l. perlman 3 Bridging the Gap: Incorporating Science-Based 42 Information Into Land Use Planning bruce a. stein Private Developments Providing Conservation 55 Benefits at Multiple Scales 4 Coffee Creek Center, Chesterton, Indiana: 57 Mixed Use Residential Development 5 General Motors Lansing Delta Township Assembly Center: 72 Industrial Private Development 6 Santa Lucia Preserve, Carmel Valley, California: 84 Luxury Conservation Development/Preserve County Plans and Regulations Providing 105 Conservation Benefits at Multiple Scales 7 East Contra Costa County, California: Habitat Conservation 107 Plan/Natural Community Conservation Plan 8 Baltimore County, Maryland: Integrated Land Use 133 Regulation, Resource Protection, and Public Facilities 9 Summit County, Colorado: Wildlife Habitat Overlay District 148 iii

4 iv nature friendly land use practices at multiple scales State/Federal Programs Administered for 167 Conservation Benefits at Multiple Scales 10 Fall River, Massachusetts: Source Water Protection North Carolina s Ecosystem Enhancement Program: 183 Transportation Projects and Compensatory Mitigation 12 Solving the Scale Problem 196

5 Acknowledgments The authors thank the Wildlife Habitat Policy Research Program (WHPRP) managed by the National Council for Science and the Environment and funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation for financial support of this work. We are grateful for the substantial contributions of ELI Research Associate Jesse Oppenheimer for research and writing of the Santa Lucia and Summit County case studies. We also thank from ELI, Scott Schang, Vice President (Publications and Associates); Carolyn Fischer, Books Editor; Linda Johnson, Managing Editor; and William Straub, Desktop Publisher for their excellent work on putting this book together. For their work on Chapter 2 and Chapter 3, respectively, we thank Dan Perlman and Bruce Stein. Special thanks to the WHPRP program committee and staff Chris Bernabo, Jim Boyd, Kim Elliman, Dennis Figg, Tom Franklin, Mike Harris, John Kostyack, Luther Propst, Alan Randall, Mark Shaffer, Peter Stein, Bob Szaro, Sara Vickerman, and Christina Zarrella for their guidance and support. In addition, we gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the following people who provide us with valuable information and guidance: Joyce Ambrosius, Tom Anderson, Andy Backman, Steve Barker, Kristine Bentz, Bridget Burnell, Jim Curnutte, Kristin Dean, Debbi Edelstein, John Ervin,Abigail Fateman, Erica Fleishman, Tom Gray, Lisa Guthrie, Suzanne Klimek, John Kopchik, Tom Kroening, Michael LaBossiere, Jacob Martin, Paul Morrow, Kate Noonan, Brad Olson, Donald C. Outen, Terry Palmisano, Jim Patchett, John Pitra, Charles Rich, John Roberts, Shannon Schwab, John Shepard, Jim Sulentich, Lisa Taylor, Roxanne Thomas, Holly Vaughn, and David J. Yocca. v

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7 About the Authors Rebecca L. Kihslinger is a Science and Policy Analyst at the Environmental Law Institute (ELI). She is the lead editor of ELI s 2007 publication, Lasting Landscapes: Reflections on the Role of Conservation Science in Land Use Planning and the lead author of a chapter on biodiversity corridors in Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design With Nature (John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2008). Kihslinger has also been a contributing author of ELI research reports related to wetland buffers and habitat banking and has developed a wetlands mitigation training course for land trusts. In 2006, she earned a Ph.D. in animal behavior from the University of California at Davis, where she studied the effects of hatchery rearing practices on salmon development. James M. McElfish Jr., directs the Sustainable Use of Land Program at ELI. He is the author of ELI s 2004 book, Nature- Friendly Ordinances, several books about mining regulation, book chapters on state and local environmental laws, and approximately 60 ELI research reports and scholarly articles, mostly relating to water, wetlands, land use, and habitat. McElfish served on the American Planning Association s Directorate for its Growing Smarter Legislative Guidebook. He is a graduate of Yale Law School (1979) and Dickinson College (1976). Contributors Dan Perlman and Bruce Stein are Ph.D. scientists and leaders in biodiversity conservation and education. Dr. Perlman is Associate Professor of Biology and Chair of Environmental Studies at Brandeis University. He is coauthor of three textbooks on conservation biology and ecology. Dr. Stein, formerly Vice President and Chief Scientist for NatureServe, is the National Wildlife Foundation s Associate Director of Wildlife Conservation and Global Warming. He was lead editor of Previous Heritage: The Status of Biodiversity in the United States (Oxford University Press, 2000). vii

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9 Preface Ecologists know they have a problem. Every landowner or regulator of land makes decisions concerning areas whose boundaries bear little, if any, relationship to ecologically defined functions. This has become known as the problem of scale. Solutions such as ecoregional planning or conservation planning are frequently proposed. But what can a landowner do when such plans are not yet in existence? Or where the information available in a plan does not match the spatial and time scale of the decisionmaker, who is almost always concerned with a different set of issues with their own elements of scale? Can landowner decisions accommodate uncertainty and changing answers about the science? The research for this book began as a National Council for Science and the Environment-administered study seeking to determine how state and local land regulation and management programs focused on other primary objectives could generate ancillary benefits for wildlife. We soon realized that in addressing this question, we were seeing practical answers to the problem of scale. And we were seeing similar answers for land use decisions at different scales. These answers are rooted in institutional choices. Rather than restating biological conservation principles in a nested hierarchy of plans, the answers involve the construction of systems that can allow entry of, and use of, new information. Such systems can make excellent use of large-scale conservation plans, where these exist, but do not depend upon the prior existence of such plans. Land use decisions are not one-time decisions, but involve multiple institutions whose participation in land management continues over time and area. The case studies that follow, preceded by essays by Dan Perlman and Bruce Stein, show how systems solutions offer practical approaches to a problem that bedevils ecologists while too often escaping the notice of land use decisionmakers. ix