Bird Solution Is in Hand at UCI : * Chancellor Is Correct to Consider New Sites for Executive Residence

At UC Irvine, everybody wins, including the celebrated gnatcatcher, in a compromise being fashioned for a new chancellor’s residence.

The university has had its share of contention about the proposal, which ran squarely into the regional debate about the fate of the vaunted songbird.

A faculty committee now has weighed in with two alternative sites, after being ordered by Chancellor Jack W. Peltason to look into the matter. Peltason’s promise to “take very seriously the recommendations” augurs well for an amicable settlement of this dispute, which has created quite a stir.

UCI’s status as the only University of California campus without a chancellor’s residence was well on its way to being resolved when the gnatcatcher took the spotlight. But while plans moved forward for raising the private money to build the magnificent, $3.2-million building, which will have chancellor’s quarters and banquet facilities, the site plan was sidetracked. Concerns were raised about the fate of the gnatcatcher, discovered in four breeding pairs on a site on the southernmost edge of the campus.

The building of the chancellor’s residence may now take longer. But in seeking the opinion of the land-use subcommittee of the Academic Senate, and waiting until after a study of gnatcatchers was conducted, the university is proceeding with proper deliberation.

The faculty group recommended that the chancellor consider two alternative campus hilltop sites and that it incorporate part of the original site--where coastal sage scrub is habitat for gnatcatchers--into a planned 62-acre reserve.

This willingness to compromise is worth the trouble and wait. UCI is proving that it can have both its gnatcatchers and its chancellor’s residence.

And it is showing how to resolve a difficult environmental debate by bringing the resources of a university to the task of finding common ground.