Habitat Conservation
The MSHCP covered more than 1.26 million acres in western Riverside County. In order to realize the goal of protecting the 146 species named in the plan, 40% of the land studied, 500,000 acres, was designated for preservation.
Fortunately, about 69% or 347,000 acres was already public or quasi-public land when RCA was formed in 2004. This land forms the core of the habitat conservation plan. RCA’s work focuses on the remaining 153,000 acres needed to fulfill the plan’s requirements and is expected to take at least 25 years. To date, 27% of the remaining goal of 153,000 acres has been acquired. When complete, this half million acres will constitute a system of reserves that will protect an incredibly broad spectrum of life and ecosystems.
The MSHCP also identified habitat adjoining the core areas and linkages by which species could be expected to move from one area of conserved habitat to another. These areas of adjoining land and linkages are at the heart of the MSHCP. They comprise the area to which the MSHCP “criteria” are be applied and from which the 153,000 acres are being acquired. This Criteria Area has been divided into cells or cell groupings for organizational and evaluation purposes.
In addition, nine zones were established by the MSHCP to guide reserve acquisition using environmental factors. Within each zone are similar weather patterns, geography, soils, and geology. These areas are called “rough steps” because they are meant to help RCA evaluate whether conservation of specific habitats is occurring in rough step with development approvals. The MSHCP also established conservation targets within each of the member cities and each of the 16 Area Plans in western Riverside County covered by the Riverside County General Plan.
Rough Step Areas, Criteria Areas, and Criteria Cells, are RCA’s toolbox for evaluating and acquiring habitat. Land is acquired in several ways, private land is acquired as a result of fees for entitling new development, RCA buys land from willing sellers, and conservation easements are donated or purchased.
Using this toolbox, RCA helps local cities and the County implement the MSHCP. All projects in the Criteria Cells, except those covered in the original MSHCP, are subject to project review.
