Developers funded Sacramento County climate action plan. Environmentalists see a conflict

Sacramento County leaned on developers last year to help fund its long-delayed climate action plan, raising conflict of interest concerns among environmentalists who say the early drafts do not have enough detail to be an effective blueprint for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The climate plan has been mired in delays and funding setbacks over the last ten years. Last spring, the cash-strapped planning department said it would need to spend $300,000 to hire a consultant to complete the report. The county had already spent at least $400,000 on the report.

The only problem? The department didn’t have money in the budget for the consultant. In an April 1 letter, planning director Leighann Moffitt appealed to five developers who are vying to build large projects in the county to put up $60,000 each so Ascent Environmental, the consultant, could finish the climate action plan. Each developer contributed.

In the eyes of some environmentalists, the financial arrangement suggests a conflict of interest. Each of the five firms wants the Board of Supervisors to expand the boundaries of where new development is allowed to include their projects. And that decision is in conflict with the aims of the climate plan.

“I know some environmentalists were concerned that the county’s staff was compromised in this way,” said Ralph Propper, president of the Environmental Council of Sacramento. “There were a lot of concerns about that but the county was pleading poverty.”

The climate plan is not required by state law, however, it’s widely seen as a time-saving measure when building projects undergo environmental reviews required by the California Environmental Quality Act or CEQA. For that reason and others, many local governments like Sacramento, which adopted its climate plan in March 2015, have opted to create one.

Urban sprawl is one of the main contributors to the blanket of pollution that’s overheating the planet, contributing to stronger wildfires and hurricanes. It’s also one of the few areas of commerce squarely within the county’s control. As land is paved over with concrete, there is a spillover effect: more energy-burning houses require cars to get there which often release harmful toxins into the atmosphere.

“If you don’t develop in some of those areas and do a more compact-infill kind of growth, you save something that’s sequestering carbon,” said Barbara Leary, who chairs the executive committee of the Sierra Club’s Sacramento group. “And you’re not adding transit usually done by private individual cars to the mix.”

State law requires developers to account for climate change in their building plans which can be a costly endeavor, but if the county already has a plan on the books they can defer to that.

Planning department officials defended the move as necessary since their $11 million budget for the year was spent. They said it was not unlike earlier phases of the climate action plan that were funded using development fees. Meanwhile, some of the developers said they didn’t hesitate to contribute the funds since a uniform plan allows their projects to easily come into compliance.

“Our position was it’s really important that we get a handle on the question of what we can do to be part of the solution, so our investors didn’t hesitate to pay our fair share,” said Bob Thomas, a spokesman for the proposed Upper West Side project who is also a former Sacramento County executive and Sacramento city manager. “It’s better to have regional, statewide and national standards as we move forward with development projects than to have to create our own.”

Did Sacramento developers get special treatment?

Their contribution amounts to a little more than one-third of the estimated $850,000 cost for the climate action plan but county officials and some developers say they will not get any special treatment.

Developers usually have to jump through hoops to comply with CEQA. The climate plan is expected to “streamline” that process, county staff said in a 2017 report to the Board of Supervisors.

What’s more, developer fees were used to complete the first two phases of the climate plan, said county planning director Leighann Moffitt.

“We believe that the entirety of the cost for preparation of the climate action plan should not fall on taxpayers but should include a contribution by the developers of pending growth areas being added into the County’s urban footprint,” Moffitt said. “Entitlement fees or payments made via the adopted master plan funding agreements are not a commitment to any particular outcome.”

Thomas, the spokesman for the vast Upper West Side project, which would add some 10,000 homes along the Sacramento River in Natomas, said the arrangement isn’t all that different from other community endeavors funded by business interests.

The Sacramento Tree Foundation was started with money from developers, and the American River Parkway has also received major contributions. These amenities are things that the developers focus on, too, for their community benefit, he said.

“There’s no expectation that the development community is going to have special privileges in guiding the climate action plan,” Thomas said. “I think we will have an opportunity to speak or see a draft but there’s no greater weight placed on contribution of funds.”

A decade-long wait for disappointment

County staff began working on the climate plan after the general plan was updated in 2011, a sweeping document that outlined its future strategy for responsible growth. Another phase of the climate action blueprint was completed in 2012, which focused on government operations like energy-efficient garbage trucks and county buildings.

In 2016, the county hired Ascent Environmental to take on the biggest and, arguably, the most far-reaching phase that sets standards for the community.

Ascent’s work stopped after a judge ruled on a case in San Diego County where the Sierra Club repeatedly sued the government (and won) for failing to comply with state law when forming its climate action plan.

County supervisors adopted their climate plan in 2013 over the objections of environmental groups and was dragged into court several times. The publication Voice of San Diego reported in early 2019 that the county had paid more than $1 million for the Sierra Club’s attorney fees.

Seeing the drama unfold, Sacramento County planners started to worry some of their efforts hewed close to the San Diego plan.

“I wouldn’t say it was necessarily the same track but there were enough similarities that we wanted to make sure we weren’t going to set ourselves up for the same pitfall,” said Todd Smith, a principal planner overseeing Sacramento’s climate roadmap.

Restarting the plan languished for months, which turned into years. Finally, in 2020, under pressure from the county supervisors, they entered into a new agreement with Ascent Environmental, which was also the author of San Diego’s ill-fated climate plan.

When the first draft was finally published in March this year, local environmental groups said it was watered down and imprecise — some of the same criticisms groups made about San Diego County’s climate plan.

They’ve submitted several pages of comments and met recently with interim county executive Ann Edwards in hopes of improving the plan before it comes before the Board of Supervisors in the fall.

Now some are left to wonder whose interests were considered most when they created it.

Preserving land and open space, which is widely known to absorb carbon pollution, did not seem to be a priority, among other things, said Barabara Leary of the Sierra Club.

“I’m not sure why more specific measures were not included,” Leary said. “Some of them may be costly or difficult to achieve, and there may be some push back from the business community.”

This story was originally published June 10, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Developers funded Sacramento County climate action plan. Environmentalists see a conflict."