LA County revises General Plan and SEAs

Los Angeles County is revising the General Plan and hopes to have environmental documents out by summer 2012 for public review and comment. The General Plan governs how and where development in Los Angeles County will be permitted .

Included in the plan is a revision of the Sensitive Ecological Areas program. The County has adopted 61 SEAs of about 125,000 acres, and proposes to expand that to 27 large SEAs of around 650,517 acres, many of which are in the Antelope Valley.

SEAs require applicants for development to undergo a more rigorous review of impacts of development on biological resources such as birds, but they aren’t all fully protected.

Los Angeles Audubon will be advocating for the highest level of protections for birds, especially for sensitive bird species of Los Angeles County as identified by the Los Angeles County Sensitive Bird Species Working Group (Larry Allen, Mary Freeman, Dan Cooper, Jon Feenstra, Kimball Garrett, Garry George, Mary Loquvam, Eleanor Osgood, Tom Ryan, Mike San Miguel and Stacey Vigallon) and published in Volume 75, Number 3 January/February 2009 WESTERN TANAGER. You can find this issue online at the Los Angeles Audubon website. More on the General Plan on http://planning.lacounty.gov/generalplan