Rancho San Carlos/Santa Lucia Preserve
The Rancho San Carlos project is a comprehensive plan for the approximately 20,000 acre Santa Lucia Preserve property located in the hills south of Carmel Valley in Monterey County. Over twenty years ago the landowner, the Rancho San Carlos Partnership (Partnership), undertook a major planning effort that resulted in the largest subdivision of property in the County’s history. DD&A provided the Partnership with planning management and resource planning services resulting in the successful development and entitlements for this property. The unprecedented comprehensive planning for the creation of the residential community of the Santa Lucia Preserve also ensures long term management and large scale resource preservation of thousands of acres of rangeland and open space:
18,000± acres of the land’s most valuable environmental resources are set aside in perpetuity as Preserve Lands.
2,000± acres are developed as Settled Lands, for uses including housing, golf course, recreation areas, and a community center.
DD&A principal and staff have had a long-term integral role in the successful development of this project, including management of a “bundle” of interrelated entitlements and permits necessary to implement the development on this site. DD&A was a key member of a management team working to develop this property with state of the art strategies for protecting and enhancing wildlife habitats and avoiding potential impacts to rare and/or threatened species of concern. The challenge of this project was the integration of a phased residential community with the natural environment as part of an ecologically and economically sustainable community program. DD&A biologists worked as part of a team to produce a Multi –Species Habitat Conservation Plan with the Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service. Environmental studies conducted in support of the HCP include Service protocol-level surveys for the California tiger salamander (CTS) and California red-legged frog (CRLF), including winter upland drift-fence studies and spring-time aquatic sampling. DD&A also prepared extensive habitat and special-status species mapping for this project and has created a GIS database for this property. Currently, DD&A contracts with the Rancho San Carlos CSD, the Santa Lucia Conservancy, and individual property owners on an as-needed basis to conduct project-specific biological resource evaluations and surveys, including CTS and CRLF aquatic surveys and focused rare plant surveys.