Only a Conservation Easement Will Preserve the West Transmountain Scenic Corridor In Perpetuity

On Tuesday, March 20, the El Paso City Council approved a plan which called for preservation, in perpetuity, of the 837-acre Scenic Corridor land just west of the Franklin Mountains State Park. The motion, made by Representative Niland and seconded by Representative Robinson, amended the Public Service Board’s Westside Master Plan and specifically mentioned “authorization to process a Conservation Easement by a third [party]” for the Scenic Corridor. The previous month this plan had been approved by the City’s Open Space Advisory Board. On Wednesday, June 13, the Public Service Board itself unanimously approved this resolution, made by Mayor Cook: “To approve the [Technical Working Group’s] recommendations that if the [Scenic Corridor] reverts to the City [after having been transferred to the Franklin Mountains State Park], it will come back with conservation easement if that is legally possible.”

A conservation easement is simply a legal contract. It binds the parties to honoring the contract’s terms in perpetuity—forever. The terms of a conservation easement are negotiated by the land’s current owner, the land’s new owner if any, and a third party—typically a land trust organization. (The world’s largest land trust is the Nature Conservancy, preserving land through easement or ownership in over 30 countries and all 50 states.) The third party monitors the easement while the land’s owner manages it. If the Scenic Corridor is transferred to the Franklin Mountains State Park (a frequently-mentioned possibility), the park would manage the land and a land trust (yet to be named) would monitor it, making sure that the terms of the easement were honored.

It’s indeed possible for a land trust to hold a conservation easement on land that is owned by the City of El Paso or by the State of Texas. At the present time, El Paso’s Frontera Land Alliance holds the easement on the 26-acre Thunder Canyon on the upper West Side, owned by the City through 2037 as a Public Improvement District. At present, at least five Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) properties carry easements in full or in part, including the Black Gap Wildlife Management Area near Alpine and the famous Government Canyon State Natural Area to the west of San Antonio. But it’s also true that state- and city-park land can be disposed of. From 1995 through now, TPWD disposed of 57 parcels previously forming part of Texas state parks. Seventeen were sold, fifteen were transferred, eight were exchanged and so forth. In El Paso itself, parts of the Mission Valley’s Blackie Chesher Park were disposed from parkland use so that a police station and a municipal court building could be built on them.

A very important reason why an easement must be deployed on the Scenic Corridor can be summed up thus: “frontage roads.”

A very important reason why an easement must be deployed on the Scenic Corridor can be summed up thus: “frontage roads.” According to TxDOT’s plans for Loop 375, frontage roads will run about 300 yards to the east of the Paseo del Norte interchange, on Scenic Corridor land. Frontage roads provide access to stores, restaurants and other commerce. The temptation—15, 30, 45 years from now—to sell off part or all of the 837 acres will remain strong. But with a conservation easement, the 837 acres will be preserved in perpetuity, just as City Council and the Public Service Board want them to be.

I strongly urge that when it meets next Tuesday, the El Paso City Council renew its commitment to a conservation easement on the Scenic Corridor land by voting in favor of one. 

Dr. Richard Teschner

Fire the Trustee

(See bottom for some very important dates regarding the City Comprehensive Plan Re-Write and a presentation about the Rio Bosque by John Sproul.)

Imagine that you have a trustee in charge of managing your financial portfolio. You go to this manager and say that you have decided to make some changes in your financial plans. The manager tells you that you can’t. You want “abc”; she insists you want and need “xyz”.  As she has done so many times before, she tells you that her investments for you assure that your fees for her services are kept low. You tell her that is not true but she keeps insisting that it is. You’ve noticed that she makes a number of claims that aren’t true. You realize that your goals and objectives have diverged.  You also realize that your trustee shares very little with you and makes non-transparency a regular policy.  What do you do? I’ll bet you take your assets out of that account. I bet you fire your trustee and go get another one.

Overwhelmingly people at the Dover Kohl-led charrette process involving the Scenic Corridor and the Westside (NW El Paso) Plan said that they just don’t want to develop any of the acreage in the Westside Plan. (Read No-Build IS the Option at our blog.)  Nobody wanted the old plan that many remember was written in spite of objections.  Big “X’s” marked that plan at the hands-on session. “Why sell the land for development?” was the key question. The PSB, the land manager, our “trustee”, will tell you that selling land will keep water rates low. From an open records request, we learned that PSB land sales from 1999 to 2009 were about $4 million per year. For the last two years those sales amounted to less than $500,000.  Land sales only amounted to 2% of the yearly revenue including water, stormwater, and wastewater – not enough to keep rates low by any means.

Now factor in some more things. Once land is developed, guess who takes over the cost to maintain the infrastructure and provide the services for the new development? You do – and it’s much more than keeping the pipes working and the sewer flowing. It’s schools, fire, police, roads, more and more. You can count on paying for these expenses from now on until eternity.

Except it won’t ever go for very long. There’s an 800-pound gorilla sitting next to our land manager: water supply. We have more land than we have water. Development doesn’t pay for itself. We are in fact subsidizing developers. Costs for water will increase as we depend more and more on desalinization and imported water. (By the way, imported water from farmland to the east of El Paso County is not at all a sure bet. Word is that there are lawsuits popping up.)

Land sales may have made some difference in the past. (May have – I don’t really know and I’m just guessing.)  But with increased population and water customers, the benefit from land sales decreases. Things change. Unfortunately our trustee has not – a trustee you will remember who will tell you straight to your face such things as a piece of property being “natural open space” when that land is nothing more than a vacant lot in the middle of a long-established neighborhood.  (What do you do with your trustee? Take your assets elsewhere. Fire your trustee. Go get a new one.)

It’s becoming clear. People want to preserve land not sell it for development and subsidize developers. People want to re-vitalize our downtown. People no longer believe tall tales about land sales and water rates.

Here’s another 10 reasons why protecting El Paso’s Scenic Transmountain Corridor is important to protecting the Franklin Mountains State Park.

2 more things before we go:

Come hear wildlife and conservation biologist, John Sproul, this coming Thursday, February 2^nd, at 6 p.m. at the El Paso Garden Center, 3105 Grant Avenue. (Map) The Trans-Pecos Chapter of the Texas Master Naturalists is sponsoring this presentation open to the public.  Many of you know that the Rio Bosque, an important ecological treasure and wildlife habitat, is in critical danger. The drought, challenges with water, and underfunding from the City have led to a park on the verge of dying.  Sproul and a handful of volunteers daily truck water from the nearby Bustamante Plant into the park where they hand water the trees. Bottom line: come hear Sproul.

By the way, elpasonaturally likes what the El Paso Times editorial board had to say about wetlands in their op-ed piece on work at the Fred Hervey Water Reclamation Plant in Northeast El Paso. All the same arguments can be made for the endangered Rio Bosque Wetlands Park, another City Park that the Parks and Recreation Department spends zero dollars for – but then they haven’t budgeted for trails, connectivity or open space.

Finally, as many of you know, an item to take action on the City’s Comprehensive Plan Re-Write (Plan El Paso) was deleted from last week’s CPC meeting. It seems that some at the Chamber of Commerce want more time to give additional feedback.  This is a euphemism for a delay tactic to scuttle the plan. This Plan has been vetted for nearly two years now. (You can read the complete draft of volume 1 and volume 2 of the Plan El Paso document online.)  More than 2500 people participated in 100 meetings and 20 hands-on-sessions. Plan El Paso has been discussed by numerous groups, stakeholders and the press. Nobody can say that we can’t make a decision on it now. As citizens who care, mark your calendars now and be heard at the following upcoming meetings:

Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee

Monday, February 20, 2012, 10 a.m. to Noon, 10^th Floor City Hall

City Plan Commission

Thursday, February 20, 2012, 1:30 p.m., 2^nd Floor City Hall

Legislative Review Committee

Thursday, February 23, 2012, 1:30 p.m., 2^nd Floor City Hall

City Council

Tuesday, March 6, 2012, 8:30 a.m., 2^nd Floor City Hall

You can bet that the Chamber and those forces who hate the new landscape ordinance, hate open space, hate the Open Space Advisory Board, hate anything but concrete, asphalt, sprawl and water meters will be present at each meeting. (See above about subsidizing developers.) City government needs to see and hear us as well.

No-Build IS the Option

Option Number One: No-Build - Protect ALL of the land. 

Click on image to enlarge.

At the Works-in-Progress session this past Saturday, Dover Kohl representatives gave a summary of what they had learned from the Hands-on Session and meetings with various stakeholders throughout the week regarding the Westside (Northwest El Paso) Master Plan and the Scenic Transmountain Corridor issue. Here's what they learned:


Option Number One: Protect ALL of the land.
Option Number Two: Preserve as much as possible.
Preserve permanently.
Protect arroyos and habitats.
Create a new and safer entrance into the State Park.

The old PSB Westside Master Plan that nobody wants. (Nobody wanted it when it was first proposed but we got it anyway.) Note the commercial development along Transmountain. 

Click on image to enlarge.

Dover Kohl did not come to "talk the public out of conservation efforts and initiatives" nor did they try to explain or defend the PSB. However, working back and forth between interested parties, they did provide a scenario for smart growth development that had a bit of both sides to it. Their scenario preserves 65% of the land versus the old PSB Westside Plan that only saves 32% and even the land defined in the petition initiative that preserves 55%. The scenario that they presented at the end of the week provides more homes for a larger population and accounts for more employment than the old plan of the PSB's that would put ugly commercial development along the Scenic Transmountain Corridor. If one were to live in the old PSB plan, they would walk 4,660 feet to the nearest shop or restaurant but only 1,182 feet in the new plan. Parks would only be 824 feet away versus 2,957 feet under the old PSB plan.


Nevertheless, people said that what they prefer is the No-Build Option. Begrudgingly, some said that a simpler scenario would be okay but with caveats: land (including arroyos) are preserved in perpetuity; no roads through the open space unless elevated ("no box culverts" one El Paso leader emphatically stated); preservation of the Scenic Corridor; protection of animals, habitat and animal corridors.

The only scenario that some found begrudgingly acceptable.

Click on image to enlarge.

Get to Today's Hands-on Session

It has started – the process to review and change the Westside (Northwest) Master Plan including preserving the Scenic Transmountain Corridor. Dover Kohl has their design studio set-up at the Canutillo Independent School District offices on Artcraft. Tonight is the public hands-on session in the Canutillo High School auditorium between Transmountain/Talbot and Artcraft. A schedule, addresses and maps can be found at elpasonaturally. Just be sure you click on the image to enlarge.

Everyone should participate. Simply all of us have much to gain from being in the conversation this week. If you are at the hands-on session then you will get to listen firsthand to citizens and technicians instead of having to rely on mere gossip or someone else’s account of what happened. It doesn’t help to be there “in spirit”. You’ve got to be there. If you can’t the design studio is open all week waiting for your review and comments.

Dover Kohl has already prepared some maps to help guide us with our discussions at the hands on session. Also, already a number of good ideas have been expressed by citizens. One of the more refreshing ideas is a “No Build” option – simply leave the northwest land in question in its natural state. One proponent firmly stated that she was “no luddite”. She believes in development – just not there. Instead, encourage development in downtown El Paso. The draft of the Plan El Paso (Comprehensive Plan) states clearly: “Redevelopment is important throughout El Paso but nowhere more than Downtown” (page 1.13). “What you do downtown, you don’t have to do out there [natural open space in northwest El Paso],” someone else added.

You can read the complete draft of volume 1 and volume 2 of the Plan El Paso document online. (The Comprehensive Plan Community Presentation is scheduled for Thursday evening at the El Paso Community Foundation on Oregon.

Of course there are other plans that call for more or less development in the northwest principally south of Transmountain. Bottom line is that you need to be at the hands on session this evening beginning at 5 p.m.

For conservationists, for petitioners, for those who care about the land and see the value of preserving it and holding it sacred, there remain key points. Here are some that I keep hearing:

Land preserved in its natural state must be preserved forever. Flexible conservation easements can be written to do just that – flexible enough to make accommodations for utility additions such as water tanks and service roads. I have heard that Ed Archuleta and EPWU are afraid that their hands will be tied by an easement. However, its flexibility means just the opposite. Frankly, they are very smart people and I bet they already know that. What they are mainly afraid of is not being able to change things in the future so that they can sell to builders. This is the biggest sticking point for this whole process. If the land is not preserved in perpetuity, then petitioners will ask for a ballot referendum and they have the numbers (which are growing) to get it.

The preservation of the arroyos means that any roads over them must be elevated.

Animal habitat and corridors must be preserved and created.

Keep the mountain biking/hiking trails natural that cost nothing to maintain, but attract a growing biking community and eco-tourists.

Safe access to the State Park! (For animals too.)

Keep some other things in mind. Just as it is important for each of us to be in right relationships with each other, we need to be in right relationship with the land and the living things which inhabit it. Conservationist Aldo Leopold wrote in the now classic 1949 book, A Sand County Almanac: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

No one may not be able to objectify it, but there is a spirituality and a sacredness to places.

Finally, in this arid land under drought, preserving natural space conserves water. The model of adding more rate payers (building and metering more homes and businesses) means using up the little water that we have more quickly. Passive rain water harvesting, green infrastructure/low impact development need to be guiding principles. Retention ponds are built upstream for one reason: to be able to build more and more houses and office buildings and strip malls.  The cost to the taxpayer for maintaining and repairing infrastructure such as roads, schools, water lines, etc. is much greater than any initial return on the sales of land. Land sales are not a factor in the EPWU’s bond rating and land sales don’t really affect your rates. When have your rates gone down as the result of selling land? You cannot build to achieve lower taxes, lower utility rates or guarantee more water. It’s the other way around.

Please come to the hands-on session from 5 to 9 p.m. this evening at Canutillo High School. It may be a drive for most – but it is a drive to make.

It Starts Tomorrow!

Click to enlarge image.

Canutillo Independent School District
7965 Artcraft Road


Canutillo High School
6675 South Desert Boulevard

Begin the Process!

By a unanimous vote today, City Council gave the City Manager a green light to sign an agreement with Dover Kohl which includes updating the NW Master Plan to Smart Growth/SmartCode plan and providing a plan for the permanent preservation of the Scenic Corridor view shed. Preserving open space as called for by petition now includes preserving that open space in the context of a much better plan for Northwest El Paso.

Here is the full text of the Dover Kohl proposal:

DKPNWScope092811

Two sections were amended and all parties agreed to the amendments:

Page 4, Task 3.1

FROM THIS:

The two preferred development scenarios will be presented to the PSB and City Staff. Once DKP receives comments from the City and a selection of the one final development scenario, then the one final development scenario will be revised and resubmitted.

TO THIS:

The two preferred development scenarios will be presented to the PSB and City Staff. Once DKP receives comments from the City and a selection of the one final development scenario, then the one final development scenario will be revised and resubmitted. The final version will be submitted for approval by the PSB Board before consideration by the Mayor City Council.

AND

On Page 5, Under Item II

FROM THIS:

6.) Open Space Plan: for land to be preserved as open space to include the option(s) of a conservation easement, land trust strategy, zoning, or other mechanism for the T1 land along Transmountain Road. A conceptual plan for conservation shall be designed for the property

TO THIS:

6.) Open Space Plan: Consultant will prepare an Open Space Plan for land to be preserved IN PERPETUITY as open space along the Trans Mountain corridor. The Plan will include the option(s) of a conservation easement, land trust strategy, or other mechanism for the T1 land along Transmountain Road. A conceptual plan for conservation shall be designed for the property.

Maps

Here's a map that shows you the land which the petition has asked City Council to preserve:

You will have to click on it to enlarge. All the land within the purple land is what petitioners want preserved. This map also shows an earlier compromise proposal from Open Space Chairman Charlie Wakeem. His proposal is everything between the dotted blue lines. It preserves Arroyos, FEMA 40 and 39. Note also that he moves Paseo del Norte west out of the preserved land.

Now here is the PSB proposal which they adopted in Executive Session and proposed to the Open Space Board yesterday:

Again, click on the map to enlarge. It is the same map that I posted on September 1. Already it is erroneously being called the "Wakeem" map. Compare it to the map at the top of this post. Note however that it includes 22 acres (a resort/golf course) in the middle of the open space and cuts into FEMA 39 in the southwest corner - probably to move developable land closer to Transmountain so that the City picks up less of the burden of the cost of Paseo. Of course, note that Paseo is not moved in the PSB proposal whereas it was in the earlier Wakeem proposal.

Here's what we know about the PSB: they are opposed to a Conservation Easement as the means to preserve the land. They have stated such at OSAB. Their goal is to re-appropriate the land in a few years which a CE would make impossible because it would be forever. Also, when the City Council was ready to rezone all of the land in the Westside Master Plan as URD (Urban Reserve District) in lieu of re-planning it under Smart Code, Mr. Archuleta and the PSB reneged on their agreement to go along and supported Rural zoning. Bottom line: Mr. Archuleta and the PSB do not want any land conserved - they want it all to be sold for development. What does this mean for petitioners should City Council decide to seek some process to come up with an alternative to the petition plan rather than voting in favor of the petition plan?

The Open Space Advisory Board (the same Board that voted twice to preserve the same land as proposed by petitioners and, in fact, turned down the Wakeem "Compromise" shown in the map above) voted to recommend a process for conserving the land and finding common ground (no pun intended) with all stakeholders. This process will require about 90 days perhaps 120. It includes working with Dover Kohl, a review of the Comp plan, the use of charettes, the conversion of the Westside Plan to SmartCode and a conservation easement for land preserved.

It seems to me that this will be a good process for petitioners and all stakeholders. However, if it seems that there is no resolution, if it seems that some are not negotiating in good faith (as PSB has done with their stance regarding a conservation easement), then the petitioners have every right at any point to return to the voters and seek a referendum election. Since I was one of the chief petition organizers, I can tell you that getting the necessary signatures will take just weeks - not months - because we know where to find enough voters now.

What does this entire process teach us (if the lesson has not already been learned)? EPWU should just be a department of the City run by a Director not a CEO, the PSB should be abolished and City Council should assume total responsibility in reality and not just as a matter of fact. There is just too much power held by one man and it is used to thwart sustainable growth in the City of El Paso. Equals seek win/win. Autocrats do not.

Municipal Clerk's Office Counting Signatures

Some of the petition gatherers enjoy a light-hearted pose as they wait for the Municipal Clerk's office to time stamp and copy petition pages.

As most of you probably know from El Paso's other media sources, the Municipal Clerk's office accepted both petitions, time stamped each page, made copies for me and presented me with a receipt for each petition. Through the grapevine I have learned that they are going through the tedious process of verifying whether each signature is from a registered City of El Paso voter and may be finished as early as next Thursday or the week after that. The magic number for certification is 1547. Even as I was walking to the Clerk's office on Tuesday after a brief comment to City Council members, two people gave me more petition pages! I had counted over 1800 signatures on both petitions prior to that. They gave me nearly a hundred extra signatures so I know we were close or over 1900 total for both petitions. That's pretty good padding.

A number of citizens stood behind me as I told the Council my intention to submit signatures immediately to the Municipal Clerk. I told Council that, in addition to submitting, I would be making copies for the Federal Highway Administration which is reviewing the TxDOT Environmenal Assessment for the proposed $85 million Transmountain project. A public meeting for that is scheduled on March 22nd and I'll be posting more details about that meeting and where you can begin submitting your comments.

I also invited Council members to call or email me and I would take them on a hike of the land in question. It is not flat as PSB/EPWU President Archuleta has publicly claimed.

The petitions call for preserving land in what has come to be called the Scenic Transmountain Corridor - a mere 742 acres. It represents a compromise from an earlier suggestion to preserve all the land in the Westside Master Plan. It has been a reasonable suggestion all along but has received the greatest amount of resistance from Ed Archuleta, John Cook and others. Hopefully the petitions will give members of City Council yet another chance to do the right thing. Perhaps now they cannot rezone that land as Natural Open Space. However, they can get a conservation easement, they can dedicate it as parkland, or they can deed restrict it - 3 possibilities.

Stay tuned. For all of you who worked so hard to gather petiitions: a HUGE thanks. One thing that became clear: as more and more El Pasoans heard about this effort, more and more wanted to join an effort to save the Scenic Transmountain Corridor. It's too bad that the City Engineers and their consultant prepared a Traffic Impact Analysis of the area in which all the models point to not building Paseo del Norte through the area and yet they claim that they know better. More on that craziness later.