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Highlands Today

County Launches Planning Project For Better Conservation

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By JIM KONKOLY

Highlands Today

Published: November 12, 2008

SEBRING - The scrub habitat that runs down much of the center of Highlands County is home to 26 animal and plant species listed by the federal and state governments as endangered, threatened or species of special concern.

That scrub habitat is also where much of the future development in the county is expected to occur.

Last week, the Highlands County commissioners accepted a federal grant to develop a countywide plan to preserve the best scrub habitat while making it easier and less expensive for developers to comply with environmental regulations.

The project is being funded by a grant of $277,247 from the U.S. Department of the Interior, passed on to the county by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

By January, the county expects to hire a consultant to oversee work on the Habitat Conservation Plan for Scrub Habitats in Highlands County, which could take two years to develop, said Zane Thomas, a planner in the county's development services department.

The goal, Thomas said, is to develop "a win-win situation for the environmentalists and for developers."

Once biological studies are under way, a stakeholders committee will be formed to discuss ideas with landowners, developers, and people in the environmental and scientific communities, Thomas said.

Developing broad based community support is essential for this plan to be adopted, he said.

"Any of the recommendations coming from the Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) will be just that, recommendations that will go to the board of county commissioners," he said.

Reed Bowman, director of the avian ecology laboratory at Archbold Biological Station, is a member of the Highlands County Natural Resources Advisory Committee, which supported seeking the grant for this project.

Bowman said a countywide HCP would have many benefits over the current system, in which a developer has to determine if his project takes scrub habitat with protected species and, if it does, then develop an individual HCP for that land.

If a countywide plan is implemented, he said, individual landowners and developers "don't have to go through an individual HCP and that is a huge cost savings."

County, state and federal laws require that if development takes away habitat for listed species, mitigation is required. That can be on-site, with a portion of the property preserved through a conservation easement, or by buying habitat elsewhere and giving it to the state.

When an individual developer has to buy land for mitigation, Bowman said, the tendency is to buy the cheapest land available and that results in what he calls "hodge-podge" conservation that may not be effective.

A countywide HCP would not only identify scrub habitats but also designate the best habitats, which the county would seek to preserve, and a biologically sound plan to create a "reserve design," Bowman said.

"The idea is to protect enough scrub that the species that depend on scrub will be able to persist in this county indefinitely," he said. Also, he said, biological studies will determine whether emphasis should be put on connecting patches of preserved scrub, with corridors for animals to travel from one to the other, or adding on to existing public scrub lands.

"One of the advantages of a (countywide) habitat conservation plan is that it reduces uncertainty for private landowners, so that they don't have to find land they have to buy to offset the loss (of habitat) they incur when they develop their land," Bowman said.

If mitigation is required, a developer could pay into a county land bank fund used to acquire designated reserve lands for preservation of scrub habitat. In developing a countywide plan, Bowman said, many options will be considered on how to acquire reserve land.

"There are many ways it can be funded, and that is going to be part of the economic analysis" in the planning project, he said.

Currently, Bowman said, the process of mitigation "is driven entirely by economics without any biological criteria helping design that reserve." A countywide HCP, he said, "gives us the opportunity to use biological criteria to figure out what is the best biological design, and direct all our mitigation into that reserve design."

Scrub habitat is identified now on the county's conservation overlay maps. But, Thomas said, the maps are not precise.

"The current overlays tell where the scrub habitat is suspected," he said. "But then it's up to the landowner to do an environmental clearance report to confirm that." Thomas said the planning for the county HCP will develop new overlay maps which are precise and will let landowners know exactly how their property is classified.

Jim Konkoly can be reached at 863-386-5855 or e-mail jkonkoly@highlandstoday.com

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