Betrayed!
On December 14th, a day of infamy, the Board of Supervisors and the County Planning department betrayed the forest and the people of San Diego County by undermining the most successful plan in County history, the FCI. The Forest Conservation Initiative served to protect the last remaining wilderness, watershed and habitat from rampant irresponsible development. Planning and zoning changes that open the door to development of private inholdings outside the Country Towns are equivalent to a death sentence for the Forest.
Help us raise money for our lawsuit to protect the forest!
Read more from the Union Tribune: Lawsuits pit county against Sierra Club, other conservationists on development in national forest
The FCI was so successful because urbanization, which is essentially inimical to forest values, was contained within Country Town Boundaries. Inside those boundaries, the towns were able to grow and prosper, the FCI did not interfere with urban growth, it contained it. This formula is critical to the continued health of the forest. Unless those urban boundaries are respected urbanization will expand like a cancer within the forest. You protect the integrity of the forest by recognizing that all forest values begin at the country town boundary, they are not graduated, not greater or less than. The County calls its plan "consistent" with existing lot sizes. Let us be clear, the word consistency is a weasel word for planners who have lost the basic principles of planning.
For more background on the issue read our Comment Letter to the County in 2009 describing how the County misinterprets the sunset clause of the FCI.
Read our blog on The Land of Scheming
From the DEIR
SIGNIFICANT UNAVOIDABLE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
2.1.3.3 Visual Character or Quality
2.1.3.4 Nighttime Lighting Effects to Dark Skies
2.2.3.1 Conversion of Farmland
2.2.3.3 Indirect Conversion of Farmland
2.3.3.2 Air Quality Violations
2.3.3.3 Non-Attainment Criteria Pollutants
2.3.3.4 Air Quality Effects to Sensitive Receptors
2.4.3.1 Special Status Plant and Wildlife Species
2.4.3.2 Riparian Habitat and Other Sensitive Natural Communities
2.4.3.4 Wildlife Movement Corridors
2.7.3.8 Wildland Fires
2.8.3.1 Water Quality Standards and Requirements
2.8.3.2 Groundwater Supplies and Recharge
2.9.3.1 Mineral Resource Availability
2.9.3.2 Mineral Resource Recovery Sites
2.10.3.3 Permanent Increase in Ambient Noise Levels
2.11.3.3 School Services
2.13.3.1 Unincorporated County Traffic and Level of Service Standards
2.13.3.2 Adjacent Cities Traffic and Level of Service Standards
2.13.3.3 Rural Road Safety FEIR Section Subject/Issue
2.14.3.4 Adequate Water Supplies
2.14.3.6 Sufficient Landfill Capacity
2.15.3.1 Compliance with Assembly Bill (AB) 32
2.15.3.2 Potential Effects of Global Climate Change on the Project
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