Poway’s Subarea Habitat Conservation Plan

  • Written in 1996

  • Protects natural habitat areas.

  • Allows landowners to develop biologically rich land without having approval from CDFW, and USFWS, which can be a lengthy process.  Instead, the landowner gets approval from the City of Poway.  

  • Explains what parcels are of high biological core linkage areas (BCLA) in Poway and where the city needs to purchase land for preservation.   

  • Allows landowners to pay in-lieu fees of only $17,000 per acre.

This document is public record and is on the city’s website.  We are posting it here for easy access.

Associated Maps:

Excerpt from Preserve Wild Poway letter to the City of Poway dated Aug. 23, 2023.

 The City has demonstrated a pattern of noncompliance with the legally binding environmental obligations of the City that are detailed in the PSHCP and Implementing Agreement, in violation of the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”) and California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”).

 The City is legally required to implement its HCP/NCCP and adhere to the Implementing Agreement that it signed with the wildlife agencies to comply with the ESA. Additionally, the PSHCP is a required mitigation measure from the Scripps Poway Parkway Extension Environmental Impact Report that the City is bound to implement under CEQA.

 Preserve Wild Poway requests that the City respond in writing to the assertions of noncompliance made and substantiated in this letter, including the following: 

• Failure to place conservation easements on and annually redesignate the zoning of obtained and acquired lands to Open Space – Resource Management (OS-RM);

• Failure to maintain easements and OS-RM zoning on preserved lands in perpetuity, including lands that were previously reported as preserved;

• Failure to update in-lieu mitigation fees for over 14 years;

• Refusal to hire a qualified biologist on a fiscal year basis to conduct periodic and annual surveys;

• Refusal to expend ten percent of the PSHCP funds on management and biological monitoring;

• Failure to accurately track and implement the PSHCP preservation targets;

• Failure to implement the PSHCP’s on-site design guidelines; and

• Failure to consult with the wildlife agencies over extension of water systems.

End Excerpt