26,000 Acres Enrolled as Gnatcatcher Habitat : Environment: The 3 largest O.C. developers agree to an 18-month building moratorium to aid the rare bird.

Agreeing to a temporary building moratorium on most of their property, Orange County’s three largest developers have enrolled 26,000 acres of privately owned coastal sage scrub in the state’s effort to design preserves for the California gnatcatcher and other rare animals, county officials announced Tuesday.

By signing the state contracts, the Irvine Co., Rancho Mission Viejo Co. and the Arvida Co. have promised to preserve the enrolled land for 18 months and fund multimillion-dollar scientific surveys of the property.

The agreements are a major boost to the Wilson Administration’s embattled campaign to persuade developers to voluntarily preserve habitat of the gnatcatcher, a tiny songbird that has been proposed for the nation’s endangered species list.

Combined with about 40,000 acres of publicly owned parkland, the acreage comprises more than 90% of the coastal sage scrub habitat remaining in Orange County, said Thomas Mathews, the county’s planning director. The agreements, unprecedented nationally, are an attempt to find an innovative way to save wildlife habitat in California without the mandatory measures of the Endangered Species Act.

“This is very substantial participation. It’s a significant commitment by landowners,” Mathews said. “It is well beyond the expectations we had when we began to talk about this program a year ago.”

During the moratorium, a panel of scientists convened by the governor will determine which areas are critical for gnatcatchers and two other rare animals--cactus wrens and lizards called the orange-throated whiptail--and then designate lands that the state should try to acquire as permanent preserves.

Environmentalists welcomed the agreements but said it’s more important to note what property is not signed up, since the remaining 10% might be vital to the survival of animals that live in coastal sage scrub. They also pointed out that the self-imposed moratoriums are only temporary, since none of the developers have agreed to set aside lands permanently.

From rugged hills around Ortega Highway to the sage-covered slopes of Laguna Canyon, the three companies enrolled nearly all their land, including major areas targeted for development. Included are Gypsum Canyon and East Orange, which the Irvine Co. already has approval to develop, and canyons north of Ortega Highway that the Santa Margarita Co.--the development arm of Rancho Mission Viejo--is eyeing for possible future development.

“It is certainly a challenging decision to basically put a voluntary moratorium on thousands of acres of our property. It is risky, but this is an extremely creative approach, and we’re willing to put our money and our land where our mouth is,” said Monica Florian, a vice president of the Irvine Co.

Although the amount of acreage enrolled is substantial, its quality is largely unknown, and biologists have yet to determine whether it has high value for the birds and other species.

The most important aspect of the enrollment is that the three companies have agreed to lift the veil of secrecy over their private land. They will collect and share biological information in surveys overseen by state officials, allowing government biologists and environmentalists to learn more about the status of the gnatcatcher and other species that live there.

“I commend (the three developers) for this,” said Dan Silver, head of an environmental coalition called the Endangered Habitats League. “But it doesn’t mean that this program is a success, and it doesn’t mean the gnatcatchers, the cactus wrens and all the other species are going to be adequately protected.

“The lands not in the moratorium are up for grabs. They are being written off for development,” he said. “And for those areas that are enrolled, you still have no certainty or commitment for them to be permanent preserves.”

Environmentalists have long said that the program has too many uncertainties and is a smoke screen by the Wilson Administration to delay endangered-species listing of the bird so that development can continue, especially on the county’s proposed tollways.

“I’m cynical about the whole program,” said Pete DeSimone, a south Orange County activist who manages a National Audubon Society preserve near Trabuco Canyon. “They’ve got nothing to lose here by signing up. The economy is so bad that they probably weren’t going to do anything with that land anyway for 18 months.”

Two major Orange County developers that did not sign the state contracts are Hon Development Co., which is building the Foothill Ranch on coastal sage scrub, and the Mission Viejo Co., which owns some scrub that will be developed as part of Aliso Viejo.

California Secretary of Resources Douglas Wheeler, who heads the program, said Tuesday that he is “extremely pleased” by the Orange County agreements, calling them “a major step forward.” But he noted that they are only one step in the long process to identify critical lands then find ways to buy or somehow acquire them.

“There is much hard work ahead of us. The next 18 months . . . will be the real test,” Wheeler said.

Considered one of the most depleted animal habitats in the nation, coastal sage scrub is a mix of sage and other shrubs that is home to the gnatcatcher and three dozen other animals under consideration for endangered-species listing. The scrub at one time covered most of Southern California, but now two-thirds to 90% is gone.

Executives from the Irvine Co. and Santa Margarita Co. said signing up was a difficult decision, primarily because of the cost of the studies. But they think it is worth the effort, partially because they want to find an alternative to listing species as endangered, which they say halts development and roads for too long a time.

“This seems like the logical approach. The hard part is the cost of it,” said Richard Broming, a vice president of the Santa Margarita Co. “We’re trying to be proactive and thoughtful and responsible. It was a philosophical and business decision.”

Broming said his company has already spent several hundred thousand dollars on scientific surveys and expects to eventually spend half a million--at a time when the industry is struggling with recession. Florian said the Irvine Co. will spend at least that.

The agreements came after eight months of negotiations between the state Resources Agency, developers and local government officials. The Irvine Co. proposed the idea of the voluntary conservation program to the Wilson Administration a year ago.

The Irvine Co., the largest private landowner in Orange County, signed up the most land. The company enrolled more than 95% of all its property--33,200 acres, including 17,300 acres of coastal sage. Included are large areas it has city approval to develop, most notably East Orange, Gypsum Canyon and North Tustin.

The only lands that the Irvine Co. did not enroll are property it leases and areas used for the Newport Coast and adjacent San Joaquin Hills communities.

Rancho Mission Viejo Co. also signed up nearly all its expansive landholdings. The company, the second largest landowner in Orange County, enrolled 8,200 acres of coastal sage scrub. The only areas left off are several thousand acres leased for various uses and about 200 acres recently graded for the Las Flores community, Broming said.

The Arvida Co., the smallest of the three, signed up 1,207 acres, including 700 acres of coastal sage. It did not enroll land planned for the Coto de Caza and the Talega Valley projects, Mathews said.

Silver of the environmental coalition said developers and local governments have refused to protect areas that might be critical to the survival of species--including the paths of two proposed tollways and the Foothill Ranch area, which he said is a major nesting area for cactus wrens.

The developers, however, said environmentalists are being petty.

“We’ve grown weary of this knee-jerk reaction that whatever we do, it’s never enough,” Florian said.

Temporary Protection for Wildlife Habitat

Orange County’s three major developers--the Irvine Co., Rancho Mission Viejo Co. and the Arvida Co.--have agreed to stop building for 18 months on nearly all of their land that contains coastal sage scrub, a disappearing type of vegetation inhabited by the gnatcatcher and other rare species. The county has already donated 4,000 acres of coastal sage to the Wilson Administration’s conservation program and the federal government has added 35,000 acres.

Protection Program

More than 90% of the county’s coastal sage scrub--about 65,000 acres--will remain undisturbed during the next 18 months. Here are the principals enrolling the habitat:

Federal/state: 54%

Irvine Co.: 26%

Rancho Mission Viejo Co.: 13%

County: 6%

Arvida Co.: 1%

Source: Orange County Environmental Management Agency