Fisherman’s Lake Buffer Width, Update
The Sacramento City Council adopted a Communnity Plan amendment on June 28 changing the Fisherman's Lake Buffer and directed staff to do further analysis on protection of Swainson's Hawk nesting territories at Fisherman's Lake. This is an important habitat and wildlife issue in North Natomas. Despite months of public communication asking for a larger buffer as recommended by Planning Commission, the Council instead juggled the buffer to widen where there are nesting sites, and narrow the buffer in other locations. Friends of the Swainson's Hawk was very disappointed in the Council's action, but grateful that Council did not follow staff's recommendation to narrow the buffer.
Letters to the editor on July 16 addressed the misconceptions about the cost of the buffer.
Paying for hawk habitat
Re "$4 million a nest? Whoa!", editorial, July 7: The Bee decries the city of Sacramento spending $13 million to provide protection for Swainson's hawks. What the editorial did not mention is that, without the grant of development rights from the city, and without generous federal levee subsidies, that land would still be rice paddy floodplain surrounded by weak levees, worth, at most, a few thousand dollars an acre.
City intervention that deems this land suitable for development is what made the land worth tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars per acre. Why does the city have to pay the rezoned price for the land? Let them downzone it.
The Swainson's hawk may be the canary in this particular coal mine, but the outrage about preserving their habitat is slightly off-target. The real outrage is that our region's land use policies continue to give enormous subsidies to sprawling, outlying developments and tax the rest of us to buy habitat.- Mark Dempsey, Orangevale
Fisherman Lake buffer
The assertion that the Fisherman Lake buffer may cost $13 million is ridiculous. Most of the buffer, 200 to 300 feet wide, totaling 52 acres, was designated long ago as buffer open space by Sacramento's general plan, the 1994 North Natomas Community Plan, the 1994 North Natomas Mitigation Plan, the 2001 Natomas Settlement Agreement and the Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan.
Forecast Homes knew that it could not build in the buffer when it acquired the land as part of a much larger property. Forecast needs the city's permission to build on the rest of that property, which the city need not approve.
The buffer is necessary to protect the natural and scenic values of the Fisherman Lake corridor from the impacts of Forecast's future project. It would be unnecessary if Forecast's property remained farmland. This creates a legal "nexus" for the city to require Forecast to dedicate the buffer, gratis, to the city as a condition of the city's approval of Forecast's project. The city is not obligated to pay development prices.
The city's indication of a $13 million price tag is symptomatic of the too-close relationship between developers and city leadership.- James Pachl, Sacramento
Attorney for Friends of the Swainson's Hawk
Here are background documents:
672k pdf version of our letter to Mayor and Council (7 pages with photographs)
Our Win/Win No Cost Alternative ( 2 page Word document) Our Win/Win No Cost Alternative (2 page pdf)
Please email us if you would like to get an email update when the issue returns to Planning Commission when the Natomas Central Project moves forward for review.
FACTS TO CONSIDER
1) Fisherman’s Lake is a natural slough with rare Central Valley riparian habitat on its east and north side. Decades ago it was surrounded by forest on both sides. It supports a variety of wildlife, including species listed under the state and federal endangered species acts. Swainson’s Hawks nest here (4 nesting territories) and Giant Garter Snakes use the slough. Parts of the slough are roosting habitat for herons and egrets and it is used by ducks, grebes and white pelicans.
2) The Planning Commission spent several hours reviewing this issue on February 24 and voted 7-2 to support the 800 foot buffer. "We’re not making places like this anymore," said Commissioner ‘Red’ Banes in making the motion. "If we don’t protect it now, it will be gone forever."
3) The City of Sacramento has made various legal commitments to preserve and restore the habitat in this area and the Natomas Basin Conservancy has acquired and restored habitat on the west side of Fisherman’s Lake. The NBC's habitat restoration projects are shown in the aerial photographs above and below.
4) The Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan identifies 800 feet as the proper setback of urban development from preserved habitat lands. The set-back is intended to reduce a range of effects on all species as well as protect nesting sites of Swainson’s Hawk from distubance. Fisherman’s Lake riparian area is the eastern edge of a large habitat corridor, including NBC preserves, permanently protected airport buffer lands, and agricultural lands supporting wildlife.
5) In l985 and 1986 County Airports vigorously opposed putting housing at this location because of airport noise issues. A wider buffer area east of Fisherman’s Lake would help mitigate the conflict between residential and airport uses as well as protecting habitat.
6) The 800 foot buffer is a compromise. A more protective buffer than 800 feet would be achieved if the City did not permit development within the Swainson’s Hawk zone, a one-mile corridor along the Sacramento River which is included in the Habitat Conservation Plan as a conservation measure for Swainson's Hawks.
