Encinitas to acquire over 30 acres of open space
At the October 12 council meeting the council voted unanimously to accept three parcels of open space from the California Coastal Commission at no cost to the city.
The City staff had been contacted by the Coastal Commission about the upcoming expiration of several offers recorded against property that had been set aside as a condition of approval for development projects in the 1990's.
The staff's recommendation was to just accept open space easements on the property rather than the offer of fee title. The city would retain the right to purchase the land from the property owners at a later date.
The council majority initially concurred with the staff. Barth noted that because of the requirements of the original agreements this was an opportunity to accept title at no cost, if the city accepted the Coastal Commission's offer before the agreements expired. Opportunities such as these are rare and the council majority seems to think it was a good thing Barth was there to catalyze the decision.
A single voice or reason can be a powerful thing. A single minority voice speaking reason to a council majority puts pressure on the majority to find legitimate justifications that pass the smell test for their actions.
Open space comes with some management responsibilities.
Is there anybody in the public following the city's development of the city's MHCP (multiple habitat conservation program)? Given the number of environmentally interested citizens, it has been surprising that we haven't been able to locate anyone following the city's progress on this.
According to city staff, the Open Space Management Plan and early MHCP implementation development only got started in 2008 (hey, that's not long after I started asking the city about the MHCP progress!) and has been dragging on since then.
The city says they have already gone through a document review cycle, at this point. I hope that process was not like the cardiff specific plan, the hall park eir, city-wide traffic study, or the roads report draft document cycles, because there was room for easy improvement of those processes. It really is time to implement the lessons learned. Unfortunately, my recent conversation with the new city manager leaves me expecting more of the same, except now city management will be superficially courteous in their personal interactions with the public.
When the city-wide traffic study tried to get shoved through it took a herculean effort by the public to quickly highlight the problems with the report's data and analysis. The city placed the public's input at the end of the process of DRAFTING the policy document. At that point, there was no going back. It was a take it or leave it situation. The process was effectively complete and the public hearings were a facade.
When the roads report was finally released the consultant had already been paid off and the public was only given a few working days to review the document it took a professional staff a year to review. On top of that staff refused to answer questions about the document, so the major issues with the roads report will likely never be addressed, and almost certainly not be improved.
There are many people who care about open space habitat in the city. There are maybe three people with a history of pressing back on the city when they refuse to release public documents. Would it be bad for the city to release MHCP related documents that have ALREADY been reviewed, so that more years don't go by before the public's input has a chance to help define considered options? Would it be bad to release such documents so the public can monitor and report on the progress of the city's Open Space Management Plan and early MHCP implementation? Can the city legally withhold these documents?
It is time for others to step up and start gathering source documents from the city on these sorts of issues and help distribute them to the public. We have a dozen plus natural resource professionals on the LB email list. We are certain that many of them would be willing to help you interpret the city documents. You just have to get them the documents.
If you like open space habitat, email leucadiablog@gmail.com to see how you can help.
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