Striving for a Birdie : Environment: The California gnatcatcher lives on the site of a proposed golf course. A conservation coalition contends that the project threatens the tiny animal, but the developers say they’ll provide habitat and spur the economy at the same time.
A proposed golf course bordering the coastal bluffs in upscale Rancho Palos Verdes has come under fire from a local environmental coalition, which sees the project as a threat to the disappearing California gnatcatcher.
“We are opposed to the golf course because the area is too small to put in 18 holes of golf and still protect gnatcatcher habitat,” said Andrew Sargent, spokesman for the Coastal Conservation Coalition, a Palos Verdes Peninsula organization that includes the Sierra Club, Audubon Society and nine local groups.
The 18-hole Ocean Links course is part of a proposed 258-acre, 80-home development on the bluffs just off Palos Verdes Drive South. The project’s backers are Orange County developer Barry Hon and Ken Zuckerman of Palos Verdes Estates. Like the famed Pebble Beach in Monterey County, the course would have spectacular sea cliff holes built above the breaking surf.
Plans for the project are working their way through the city planning commission, and until recently the project seemed destined to be approved.
But the golf course is running into opposition.
After meeting with developers and city planners in February, the conservation coalition came away convinced that the golf course would wipe out critical habitat for the gnatcatcher, a tiny songbird whose numbers have declined sharply in recent years as development overtakes its habitat in coastal sage areas.
“This project would destroy some of the last coastal sage scrub left in Los Angeles County,” said Gar Goodson of Save Our Coast 2000, a local environmental group. The small, slate-gray gnatcatchers nest in the scrub and were once common in the coastal headlands from Ventura to San Diego.
The Palos Verdes Peninsula is the only place in Los Angeles County where gnatcatchers are known to still exist, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists. They estimate that only 1,200 breeding pairs remain in Ventura, Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties.
Federal and state wildlife experts believe the species’ existence is threatened, and have recommended that the birds be classified an endangered species, an action that developers strongly oppose.
The state Fish and Game Commission has rejected listing the bird as an endangered species, but a decision is pending before the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Half a dozen gnatcatchers were spotted in the development area last October, said Jess Morton of the Audubon Society. He estimated that fewer than 50 breeding pairs are left on the peninsula. Morton and other environmentalists fear that the birds will be gone from this area before they are protected by law.
The proposed Hon-Zuckerman development is on open land south of Palos Verdes Drive South and west of Shoreline Park in the southeast corner of the city. Farming has destroyed much of the natural habitat, but there are still some patches of coastal sage scrub in the canyons and dry washes that cut through the property, experts agree.
The scrub is a low-growing mix of lemonade berry bushes, sagebrush, prickly pear cactus, cholla and sunflowers found on the coastal headlands, Morton explained. More than 10,000 acres of scrub once covered the peninsula, but Morton estimated that only 500 acres remain, mostly in remote canyons and patches of unused land.
The controversy over the development, and the fate of the gnatcatcher, comes at a time when the city of 42,000 finds itself in a financial crunch. Officials of the Palos Verdes Peninsula Chamber of Commerce, among others, say the project could help spur the economy.
“This is a project that is good for the community,” said Gordon Shellberg, chamber vice president for business development, noting the city faces a $3-million budget deficit and needs more tax dollars and business revenues.
The city planning commission has tentatively approved the location of the golf course and the half-acre residential lots, but some parts of the proposal aren’t finalized yet. The location of the golf clubhouse remains uncertain and, at the insistence of the coalition, the city has asked for more information on the environmental impact of the project.
While the coalition is not objecting to the development of the 80 home sites, it is asking that some of the bluff roads in and out of the project be realigned for better public access, a spokesman said. It also opposes filling in some canyon areas to provide access to several of the lots.
A commission meeting has been scheduled March 18 to discuss the issues.
The developers contend they have designed an environmentally sensitive project that calls for the expansion of the existing gnatcatcher habitat by seeding in native grasses and planting coastal scrub in open areas between the fairways on the golf course.
“We’ve planned the project so that we are protecting eight acres of coastal sage scrub, and we will be adding another eight acres of habitat,” said Michael A. Mohler, project manager.
He said Hon and Zuckerman will spend more than $6 million developing public access to the area, building hiking trails and preserving both habitat and open space.
The lots will be developed in two units, one at either end of the project, with the golf course laid out along the bluffs between the two subdivisions. Wildlife corridors across the course will minimize the disruptive impact of the project, Mohler said.
No matter how well planned it is, the coalition contends that it will be impossible to develop the golf course and preserve gnatcatcher habitat. “The golf course will encroach on too much native vegetation,” said the Audubon Society’s Morton.
The California Gnatcatcher
Once common throughout Southern California, the California gnatcatcher is now found only in patches of Orange County, San Diego and western Riverside counties and part of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. From 66% to 99% of its habitat, called coastal sage scrub, has already been destroyed, and many remaining areas are scheduled for development in the next few years.
California gnatcatcher
The California gnatcatcher is found on sagebrush mesas and dry coastal slopes. It has a distinctive call, a rising and falling kitten-like mew. Only about 4.5 inches in length, the gnatcatcher is blue-gray on top, with lighter-colored feathers underneath, and has a longish black tail.
