Activist and Developers
Forge a Win-Win Deal

Feb. 19, 2003 -- Dan Silver thinks the cardinal rule of many of his fellow environmentalists -- stop development wherever possible -- isn't the best way to secure the future of scores of rare animals and plants in one of the nation's fastest-urbanizing counties.

So, instead of making life miserable for builders through lawsuits and picket lines, the Los Angeles-based head of the Endangered Habitats League is cutting a deal with them.

Together with home builders such as Lennar Corp. and KB Home, Dr. Silver has crafted a proposal that will give developers the right to destroy fragile plants and animal dwellings on 174,000 acres in Riverside County, Calif. In return, he wants 500,000 acres of open space to remain forever inviolate in the region, which lies some 60 miles southeast of Los Angeles, adjacent to Orange County.

The proposal represents a striking change of position for the 50-year-old doctor turned activist, whose organization is supported by local groups of the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society. It also signals a broader shift under way in the environmental movement, which has come under attack for driving up home prices by stifling development. Last year, several environmental groups helped shape a new California law that exempts housing developers from certain of the state's environmental laws when they build inside city limits. The goal is to channel development to existing developed areas and away from virgin territory.

"This is a new direction for environmentalists," says Ann Notthoff, the California legislative director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, which is based in New York. "We're saying up front that there are types of development we'd like to encourage."

Dr. Silver gave up his medical practice more than a decade ago to help save the habitat of a tiny bird called the gnatcatcher, and soon won a reputation as an effective foe of developers. Over time though, he says, he realized that builders usually got their way or simply went farther afield to build their sprawling tract-home communities. Instead of trying to halt growth, he started working with builders to hammer out environmentally friendly land-use policies before their projects even got off the drawing board.

"A complete no-growth stand is unrealistic," he now says. "I can't control demographic trends like job growth and immigration, but I can improve current land-use practices."

This approach has alienated some of his former allies. "The longer he sits at the table, the more tempted he becomes to get along with the developers who invited him there," says Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson, Ariz.

So far, Riverside County residents have attempted to stop sprawl by backing at least six lawsuits filed by environmental groups. But Dr. Silver argues that with an average of 6,000 people arriving monthly in the county in search of housing, lawsuits have mainly served to push builders out of one neighborhood and into another.

Still, lawsuits are costly for developers and make it tough for them to plan for the future. That's one reason William Warkentin, the former president of Riverside's Building Industry Association, convened a group of builders, landowners, farmers and environmentalists in 1997 to write a new land-use plan for the county. Mr. Warkentin says he was initially wary of Dr. Silver, who wasn't "universally embraced by builders as being pragmatic."

At the start of talks, Dr. Silver only confirmed this notion by stating he would accept nothing less than a habitat big enough to protect 146 species. He also demanded that builders develop denser housing and mix residential and commercial buildings to promote walkable communities. But during negotiations, builders came to view Dr. Silver as someone who "knows how to make deals work," says Mr. Warkentin. "Like all of us, Dan has learned that perfect is the enemy of good." The builders ended up agreeing to Dr. Silver's terms -- in exchange for enough land to keep them busy for 20 years.

Says Larry Gotlieb, KB Home's vice president for government and public affairs: "Dan recognized early on that population growth was going to occur and ... he'd have to start working with all the stakeholders, because defending every piece of natural space one by one wasn't going to work."

The Multi-Species Habitat Conservation Plan, as Dr. Silver's proposal is known, isn't yet a done deal. But it has gained traction as part of a three-prong plan that would also map out freeway and public-transportation routes in order to channel development as Riverside County prepares for an expected doubling of its population to nearly three million people by 2020.

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