EHL was quoted in media articles on growth management and on endangered species.
The San Diego Union-Tribune covered a symposium sponsored by the Urban Land Institute (“Housing Demand: Downtown or the Suburbs?”, Nov 14, 2015) about how to accommodate population growth in the North County. EHL’s Dan Silver was a panelist, as were housing developers and planners. Silver defended the County’s General Plan, now under assault from numerous sprawl projects being proposed on an ad hoc basis:
Dan Silver, CEO of the Endangered Habitats League, said such projects do not carry out the goals of the county’s general plan to concentrate growth in and around existing villages and towns in the unincorporated areas. “It’s the same old project-by-project, piece-mealing,” Silver said. “It’s not real comprehensive planning.”
The Voice of San Diego reported on the threat to the quino checkerpot butterfly posed by development on Otay Ranch near Chula Vista (“Otay Projects Will Force the County to Grapple With the Butterfly Effect”, January 25, 2016). EHL had called attention to this problem in CEQA comments. In the article, EHL described the plight of this species and why one proposed development is uniquely problematic.
“It used to be one of the most common butterflies in SoCal,” said Dan Silver, CEO of Endangered Habitats League. “Now it’s on the verge of extinction.
“[That project] is uniquely important because it’s the population that appears the strongest, based on the data we have,” Silver said. “It appears to be essential.”
However, the butterfly was not included in the San Diego Multiple Species Conservation Program. Silver explained why it is important to expand that program so that it “covers” the quino.
“All of us have relied on the [conservation plan] to say we can have a lot of development but we’re going to mitigate it and conserve the ecosystem,” Silver said. “Developers want certainty for their development but from the conservation side, you want certainty, too. We do need to cover the Quino.”
