Annual Report 2005 (62.7MB) - Western Riverside County Regional ...

2.0 HABITAT GAINS AND LOSSESThe rough step analysis was conducted utilizing the rough step formula in Section 6.7 of theMSHCP. Table 1, Rough Step Acreage Summary, compares the acres by vegetation type withineach rough step’s Criteria Area of available private lands (column 3) and additional Reserve landgoals (column 4) to acres conserved (column 5) and acres developed (column 7). The sixthcolumn includes the allowable development acreage targets by vegetation type for each roughstep, based on the amount of conservation that has occurred (column 5). For purposes of thisreport, RCA staff used conservation acreages (column 5) achieved by December 31, 2005, withineach rough step unit’s vegetation communities to ensure that development rates were notoutpacing conservation efforts within each vegetation community. Development rates werecalculated using allowable losses (derived from grading or building permits) between MSHCPimplementation on June 22, 2004, and the reporting period end on December 31, 2005. Whereacres authorized for development (column 7) are higher than the allowable developmentcalculated using the rough step formula (column 6), the vegetation community would beconsidered out of rough step.Rough step calculations are limited to the MSHCP Criteria Area. Acquisitions that haveoccurred outside of the Criteria Cells will count toward the overall MSHCP conservation goal of153,000 acres; however, they are not factored into the rough step formulas. Because acresacquired outside of the Criteria Cells are not considered in the rough step analysis, the rough stepacreage total in this section will not match the total acres acquired through the end of 2005 aslisted in Sections 2.2, 2.3, and 2.4.Additional acres were conserved within the boundaries of the rough step units that were notwithin key vegetation communities. These additionally conserved acres are not counted asconservation towards key vegetation communities with the rough step. These acres wereconserved for a variety of different reasons, such as meeting the MSHCP subunit and Area Plangoals or acquiring a vital property that included and/or linked key vegetation communities. Toaccurately report conservation in the Criteria Area, the analyses by individual rough step units inthis section include acres acquired within all vegetation communities within the Criteria Area ofeach rough step, including those vegetation communities where rough step goals do not exist.Acres acquired outside of the Criteria Area are not reflected in the following rough step tables.2.1.1 Rough Step 1Rough Step 1 encompasses 94,000 acres within the northwestern corner of western RiversideCounty and includes the Prado Basin, Santa Ana River, Delhi Sands flower-loving fly habitat,and the Jurupa Mountains (see Figure 3, Rough Step Unit #1). It is bounded by Interstate 91 tothe southeast, Cleveland National Forest to the southwest, and Orange and San BernardinoCounties to the north and west. Within Rough Step 1, there are approximately 10,000 acresWestern Riverside County MSHCP October 2006Annual Report (January 1, 2005 through December 31, 2005) 2-3