Rat Race Gnaws at the Nerves of Riverside County Home Builders

Actor Jimmy Cagney couldn’t have said it with more passion: “You dirty rat!” is the cry from developers now echoing across Riverside County, as a struggle to save an endangered rodent is threatening the building boom in one of the nation’s fastest-growing areas.

As of last Halloween, it is a federal offense to harm the Stephens’ kangaroo rat, a little creature that biologists say is more closely related to squirrels than to common rats.

The problem is, the rat prefers the same kind of flat land that developers like, and it only thrives in a limited area, chiefly western Riverside County.

Developers are fuming over housing projects that have been delayed while scientists scour fields for signs of the elusive, nocturnal animal. Landowners with rats on their property can’t build until a solution is found to save the rodent.

Home builders say a fee imposed last November by Riverside County to help buy rat preserves will make human housing even less affordable. Not to mention being a ridiculous waste of money for a rat, they add.

Environmentalists reply that the bigger issue is saving open space and preserving many threatened species, not just a controversial rodent.

Debate continues about how much space the animals need, but current plans call for setting aside about 30 square miles for rat preserves. That means that at least 50,000 fewer homes can be built, according to developer Harry Crowell.

Builders, biologists and bureaucrats are trying to find a compromise that will allow both burrows and bungalows to survive. If it works, the plan could be a model for other inevitable man-beast confrontations.

Riverside County has commissioned a plan--now awaiting approval from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service--to save its native rodent, often called the “K-rat.”

Meanwhile, confusion abounds as those involved try to figure out where the nomadic rats are at any given moment.

There’s controversy too with some developers saying officials gave them permission to grade in areas later identified as prime K-rat territory.

Agents are now investigating a dozen or so cases of allegedly illegal grading. Federal officials suggest that anyone with questions call them first, to avoid possible penalties that include fines and jail terms for harming an endangered species.

The plan, if approved, would allow some rats to be killed in certain areas in exchange for efforts to save habitat elsewhere. Areas favored by the rats would end up as preserves, assuming the land isn’t too expensive.

All this is going to take time--two years or more--while various studies are conducted. Boundaries of the preserve study areas have been changed and are expected to change more as research and negotiation take place.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking, frustrating builders to whom time is money. “It’s driving our costs up,” said Alan Newman, vice president of Rancho Cucamonga-based Friedman Homes. “I know it’s got to be holding up dozens of projects.”

Besides the new fee, developers are also paying interest on loans. It’s costing Homestead Land Development Corp. an extra $300,000 a month in interest alone, said Richard Crook, vice president of the Corona company.

Homestead began grading a 1,000-acre Lake Elsinore project in October and had to stop in November because 50 to 60 Stephens’ kangaroo rats live on the land, Crook said.

“We can’t always move with the speed developers might like,” said Bill Graham, project manager for RECON, a San Diego consulting firm the county hired to develop its conservation plan. He said planners want to give priority to the developers who had to stop work on projects already under way.

Time is also running out for the kangaroo rats, said Bill Havert, local Sierra Club conservation coordinator.

He is concerned that efforts may not be sufficient, especially when bulldozers grade off-limits areas--by mistake or otherwise--killing animals in their subterranean burrows and leaving less and less territory for the remaining rats.

“I have to believe some of it (the grading) is intentional,” Havert said.

Because the groups involved have very different ideas about what’s needed, Riverside County has assembled an informal task force to discuss possible strategies.

Planners envision spending $103 million to safeguard rat habitats. Money will come from a fee of $1,950 an acre ($1,000 a house if lots exceed half an acre) in much of western Riverside County, the rat’s ancestral home.

That could add from $400 to $1,000 to the cost of a new home, depending on density, as well as administrative and financing costs, builders say.

Cities within the historical range of the Stephens’ kangaroo rat--Riverside, Moreno Valley, Perris, Lake Elsinore and Hemet--are expected to copy the county fee. Officials also hope to get some federal and state funds.

Real estate developers and brokers say some buyers are already backing out of deals because of potential delays. Plus, “we have no assurance that the fee will not be raised,” said Tom Van Voorst, government affairs director for Riverside County’s Building Industry Assn.

“Rats!” isn’t the strongest expletive used by home builders discussing the situation. “We talk a lot about the rat, and it’s not too kind,” Newman admitted.

“We can make light of it, we can joke, but no matter what you think personally, it’s a real burden on housing and the people who buy new houses,” Newman said.

Prices of resale homes will also go up, he said, as delays increase and the cost of new homes continues to rise.

One of the company’s projects in Lake Elsinore was delayed more than three months while federal agents checked if grading had harmed any Stephens’ kangaroo rats. Work has resumed, but the wait cost the company more than $200,000 in interest expenses, Newman estimates.

Builders say this really hurts home buyers, not the companies, who pass along their costs.

Increasing prices will squeeze out more buyers, even in Riverside County, a haven for home buyers because it is one of the last areas in Southern California where middle-income families can afford homes.

In April, the average new home price in Riverside County was $139,277, compared to $190,630 in Los Angeles County and $275,066 in Orange County, according to TRW Information Services.

Overall, Riverside County home prices increased 21.6% in 1989’s first quarter from the same time a year ago, National Assn. of Realtors figures show.

But state biologist Tom Paulek said you you can’t blame the high cost of Southern California housing on the Stephens’ kangaroo rat.

“The poor little rat has enough problems without having to take the blame for affordable housing,” he said. “It’s almost as if you got rid of the kangaroo rat, you’d have affordable housing.”

Newman and other developers acknowledge the reclusive rodent isn’t the only factor driving up home prices.

“It’s a symbolic issue,” said Bill Bopf, a vice president of Bedford Properties’ Rancho California office, because the fee continues a pattern of slapping ever-increasing fees on builders and, ultimately, new home owners.

“Each little thing doesn’t add much but when you add them all together you get the housing market in Southern California,” Newman said. Another threatened species is also part of the problem, he said. Efforts to protect the northern spotted owl’s forest home in the Pacific Northwest are blamed for higher lumber prices here.

“If you take $1,000 for the rat and a couple of thousand dollars for the owl, pretty soon it adds up to real money,” Newman said. “Owls are at least cuter than rats.”

Which brings up another hotly debated point. Critics object that all this money is being spent on a rat, not a more popular species such as the bald eagle.

Environmentalist Havert scoffs at that. “It probably wouldn’t make that much difference if it were something much more sexy.” To some people, “it wouldn’t matter if it were a bald eagle or a teddy bear.”

California now lists 250 animals and plants as threatened or the more serious designation, endangered, Paulek said. (The Stephens’ kangaroo rat was placed on the state’s threatened list in 1972; in 1987 federal officials announced plans to give it endangered status.)

The list of plants and animals in trouble is getting longer all the time, which is why biologists say it’s important to find an overall solution, rather than react as each species reaches a crisis.

“We need to find a balance between ways to preserve endangered species and the need to provide housing,” said Rep. David Dreier (R-Claremont).

Although the rats don’t live in Dreier’s district, he chairs a congressional task force on housing, and he gets letters. So he wants to simplify the federal administrative process, to make sure first-time home buyers don’t become another endangered species.

Dreier also got a call from constituent Crowell, chairman of Upland-based Crowell Industries and one of the rat’s most outspoken critics.

Crowell doesn’t think the government should be telling him what to do with his land. Especially if it isn’t prepared to foot the bill. He doesn’t consider the endangered species public notification process adequate. And he’s outraged that a rat cost him an extra $32,000 in fees when he renewed a grading permit for a 91-home project near Sun City.

“You’ll get a lot of people moaning and groaning because they think I’m not a very sensitive person,” Crowell said. “A rat is a rat.”

Well, not exactly.

“We were all wishing it could be called a jumping squirrel,” said consultant Graham. “The public would probably perceive them better and the irony is that it would be closer biologically.”

Environmentalists lament the fact that Dipodomys stephensi’s common name includes the word rat, conjuring up images of beady-eyed vermin.

Actually, the Stephens’ kangaroo rat isn’t even very fond of being around other kangaroo rats, much less people. Despite rumors to the contrary, it seldom bites and doesn’t pose a health problem, said Mary Price, associate professor of biology at UC Riverside.

Price and others concede that not everyone cherishes the K-rat’s uniqueness. But they emphasize that it should be remembered that the rat is a food source for other animals and that saving it will safeguard those species as well.

“People get hung up on the fact that we’re doing this for a lousy little kangaroo rat,” said Peter Stine, a federal biologist. However, setting aside land for this “flagship species” will help many animals and preserve some open space in the rapidly developing western county, he said.

Of course, some skeptics aren’t convinced, and the situation provides a lot of fuel for jokes and letters to local newspapers, Price said.

That’s not all. The furry little creature is fast making its way into local culture.

Lewis Homes marketing man John Boyer serenaded sales cohorts at a recent awards show with “The Ballad of Harry Crowell.” Boyer’s satirical ditty, roughly to the tune of “A Boy Named Sue,” describes a mythical man-rat showdown with “There ain’t nothin’ warmer than a builder’s heart.”

Local writer and performer Phill Courtney was also inspired by the K-rat. The variety show he stages in local coffee houses, the “Riverside County Almanac,” has rat updates and one sketch featured a wisecracking kangaroo rat with an Aussie accent.

Then there are the bumper stickers.

Perris real estate broker Dick Slavin designed one that shortens the rodent’s name and says: “Steve, you dirty rat!,” accompanied by a toothy caricature.

“It’s a joke,” Slavin said, although he finds some colleagues reluctant to display it on their cars. But Slavin doesn’t agree with the sentiment on another sticker someone left at his office, “Nuke the Kangaroo Rats.”

“I think that’s too strong,” Slavin said. However, he believes spending money on a rat preserve is a mistake. “There are a lot of other things you could use it for--I don’t think they should use it on a rat unless they use it to exterminate them.”

Rotten rodent remarks aside, the parties involved at least agree that everybody on the task force is making a sincere effort to arrive at a workable compromise.

“Otherwise, everybody will lose,” said Paul Selzer, a Palm Springs attorney hired by the county to coordinate its conservation plan. “Those who have rats on their property will never develop it” and the animals will perish as their habitat is fragmented.

“A lot of people think this is silly,” Selzer said, but federal law leaves no choice.

Some opponents have said they might consider legal action if problems are not resolved. But industry officials are trying to avoid time-consuming lawsuits.

“I think that would kill progress, shut down the county, cause a great deal of financial harm and lose the species in the process,” said Randy Hall, president of San Bernardino-based Concordia Development Corp. The company has projects in Riverside County, where Hall is BIA chapter president.

Instead of slugging it out in court, Hall wants his fellow developers to demonstrate how they can work together to improve the community.

“Our motto is ‘We build solutions,’ ” Hall said. “Maybe a good solution would be for us to stand behind our motto and do what we say we do.”

Rat Gets Name From Its Hop

Just what is the Stephens’ kangaroo rat?

Named after 19th-Century biologist Frank Stephens, the rodent is one of several species of kangaroo rats, so called because they like to hop on their hind legs.

However, scientists consider them more closely related to squirrels than to common rats.

The animals are about 11 or 12 inches long, including a long furry tail with a tuft at the end. They eat seeds and carry them in external cheek pouches.