October 29, 2104
A Proposal from the Strategic Growth Council
A Request for California Biodiversity Council Support and Collaboration with the
Regional Conservation Assessment component of Integrated Regional Planning
in California
1. Proposal Summary
a. The Strategic Growth Council (SGC) is committed to the implementation of an Integrated
Regional Planning (IRP) approach to achieve a sustainable regional vision of development
and conservation. This approach identifies the conservation and development priorities at a
regional scale and applies an integrated planning process to optimize these goals across the
landscape.
b. The SGC sees great value in the California Biodiversity Council taking a strong coordination
and alignment role for the implementation of the regional conservation planning
component of this Integrated Regional Planning approach.
2. Background
a. The Brown administration is committed to improve the efficiency of implementing priority
regional development projects, and is exploring how this objective can be addressed
through the strategic application of project mitigation resources to advance regional
conservation priorities.
b. This work began with an evaluation of the Regional Advance Mitigation Planning (RAMP)
approach to attain these goals. Following a review of RAMP processes and requirements,
the SGC affirmed the need to identify regional conservation priorities to provide context and
guidance for all planning and implementation phases of development projects.
c. On October 6, 2014, the administration resolved to “coordinate state agencies for the
development and implementation of an Integrated Regional Planning (IRP) approach to
increase the efficiency and effectiveness of regional development and natural resource
conservation in California.“ (See Attachments 1 and 2. SGC Resolution and Staff Report).
d. The implementation of Integrated Regional Planning will require an increased level of
collaboration between state agencies, federal agencies, regional councils of government,
counties and municipalities. These collaborative processes will result in the clear
articulation of current and future conservation and development goals, and the
relationships between these activities.
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e. This IRP approach provides a unique opportunity for the efficient coordination of planning,
implementation, management, and monitoring of development and conservation priorities
by state agencies, federal agencies, regional councils of government, tribal governments,
counties and municipalities.
f. The IRP approach will identify the regional conservation priorities, along with the strategic
opportunities to optimize the use of mitigation resources to increase the efficiency of the
environmental review, permitting and conservation outcomes.
g. The California Biodiversity Council recently determined that there is a need to move beyond
existing efforts focused on the conservation of individual sites, species, and resources by
individual agencies. The Council recognized the need to work in ways that transcend
individual agencies ownerships, missions, and authorities. This work will involve agencies
working together in non-traditional ways that lead to strong alignment of conservation
goals, plans, policies and regulations across ownerships and jurisdictions.
h. The Biodiversity Council adopted a resolution in 2013 to “Strengthen Agency Alignment for
Natural Resource Conservation”. This resolution calls for member agencies to work
together in new ways to conserve California’s natural resources. The vision statement in the
resolution states the following:
Over time, the broad goals and conservation measures for biodiversity adopted by
agencies from all levels of government are aligned. As a result, the plans, programs,
policies, and regulations described in agency documents portray a consistent vision of
desired, and regionally-appropriate, conditions for conservation and management of
natural resources across California.
i. The California Biodiversity Council is seeking ways to advance its resolution to improve
alignment of agency conservation work.
j. The SGC and CBC believe the Regional Integrated Planning Initiative provides a significant
and timely approach and opportunity for partnership to advance their goals and resolutions.
A partnership agreement with the SGC would provide the following values for the CBC and
its member agencies.
i. A unique opportunity for the CBC to advance its original mission and the 2013 CBC
resolution on Strengthening Alignment of Agency Conservation Work. The work is
consistent with the CBC’s Interagency Alignment Team process to identify an
important task for CBC to address in the future.
ii. Coordination and support for individual agencies and organizations to advance their
conservation and development objectives in an inter-agency regional framework.
3. SGC Proposal for the CBC
a. The Strategic Growth Council proposes the California Biodiversity Council should coordinate
and align its member agencies to advance the conservation planning component of this
Integrated Regional Planning initiative.
b. The CBC and its member agencies would initially commit to work with the SGC to advance
the Integrated Regional Planning (IRP) process through the following activities:
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i. Develop the framework, methods and outcomes of the regional resource
conservation assessment component of Integrated Regional Planning.
ii. Support the implementation of at least one SGC Integrated Regional Planning pilot
project. This will include sharing relevant datasets, analytical tools, and staff to
complete the regional resource conservation assessment component of the pilot
project. This pilot project will help refine the resource conservation assessment
framework, methods and products, and demonstrate the value of Integrated
Regional Planning.
iii. Draft a comprehensive, long-term SGC-CBC partnership agreement to advance
Integrated Regional Planning for discussion and adoption at the subsequent CBC
meeting. The partnership agreement will outline SGC and CBC roles and
responsibilities needed to define and meet regional resource conservation goals and
priorities, and it will describe how the CBC and its member agencies will contribute
to this effort by helping to convene stakeholders, and through their programmatic
participation, datasets, analytical tools, and other resources.
c. Implementation of this work.
i. In the short term, this work will begin through the development and use of a
framework and methods for completing regional conservation assessments that
support Integrated Regional Planning in California. The framework and methods for
completing regional conservation assessments will be tested and refined through
pilot demonstration projects. (See Attachment 3. Background Materials regarding
Integration Regional Planning).
ii. SGC and OPR will evaluate any legal, policy or fiscal barriers identified through pilot
projects and determine remedies may be needed over the longer term.
iii. The relationship between SGC and CBC to implement IRP will be monitored and
adaptively managed to ensure positive outcomes.
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Attachment 1. SGC 10-6-2014 Resolution
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Attachment 2. SGC Resolution 10-6-2014 Staff Report
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Attachment 3. Background Materials regarding Integration Regional Planning
1. IRP Methods for Regional Conservation Planning (see Figure 1)
a. Identify ecoregions to provide the basic framework for IRP.
b. Identify and engage federal, state, regional and local stakeholders that need to be involved
in this process.
c. Collaborative identify Tier 1 and Tier 2 conservation targets and associated goals for each
ecoregion.
d. Complete a “gap analysis” for each ecoregion to document current status of regional
conservation goals.
e. Report the status of unmet regional conservation goals.
f. Identify strategies and opportunities to achieve unmet conservation goals.
Figure 1. IRP Framework for Regional Conservation Planning
2. Examples where components of Regional Conservation Plans have been Completed
a. Desert Regional Environmental Conservation Project (DRECP)
b. Orange County
c. Bay Area
d. SANDAG
e. Santa Clara County
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f. Santa Cruz County
g. Upper Sacramento Valley RAMP Pilot area
3. Next Steps for Regional Conservation Assessments and the Implementation of IRP.
a. Identify the datasets that are required to implement these methodologies, where these
datasets ‘reside’, and where there are significant data gaps.
b. Advance the implementation of an information management and decision support platform
where critical datasets will be integrated and analyzed for this initiative.
c. Select a small number of strategic pilot projects where the utility and efficiency of the IRP
approach can be demonstrated.
i. The criteria for the selection of these pilot projects include areas with:
1. Development pressure from multiple project proponents.
2. Environmentally important and sensitive resources.
3. Rich existing baseline datasets.
4. Broad stakeholder base
ii. The preliminary list of demonstration pilot projects include:
1. Southern California (along HSR alignment from Bakersfield-PalmdaleBurbank)
2. Central Valley Grasslands (along HSR alignment from Merced-Gilroy)
3. Central Valley LCC Landscape Project
4. Sacramento Valley
iii. Identify key partners and stakeholders for these pilot projects.
iv. Begin integration and analysis of datasets.
v. Demonstrate regional conservation planning process and outputs to generate and
implement optimal and sustainable development/conservation solutions.
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