One would assume the new city of Elk Grove would have ample opportunity to be involved with actions affecting its future, though there may be underlying politics at play regarding lingering resentment over the incorporation.
A similar situation occurred when Rancho Cordova asked for a legitimate stake in deciding the future shape of the American River Parkway Plan affecting a large part of their new city.
Elk Grove makes a last-minute push to expand county's conservation plan
By Mary Lynne Vellinga - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PDT Thursday, June 7, 2007
It has taken more than a decade for Sacramento County to come up with a comprehensive plan to protect habitat for endangered and threatened species in a huge swath of the county south of the American River.
Now, as the county approaches completion of that plan, an 11th hour request by Elk Grove to include land south of its city limits for potential urbanization threatens to delay it again, county staff members and environmental groups say.
Supervisors were scheduled to vote this week to launch an environmental review for the South County Habitat Conservation Plan. But the vote has been put off for a week while the county tries to come up with a compromise approach that could allow the city of Elk Grove to join the plan after it is adopted.
"We have been years getting to this point," County Planning Director Robert Sherry said Wednesday. "We simply cannot put the skids on our process to have (Elk Grove) catch up."
Once a habitat conservation plan is adopted, it provides a consistent set of rules for developers building within its boundaries. It designates which areas are anticipated for urban growth, and which areas will be targeted as mitigation lands for threatened and endangered species affected by that development.
