NAHBA WEEKLY NEWS SUMMARY: Fri., April 14, 2006
Pygmy Owl Delisting Makes Sense for Environment, Home Buyers
Thursday's announcement that the pygmy owl will be removed from the federal government's list of endangered species means that the government's limited resources can now be directed toward species that need more protection, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). The decision is effective May 15.
“As home builders, we want to protect species when they are endangered, but this was clearly not the case for pygmy owls,” said NAHB President David Pressly, a home builder from Statesville, N.C. “This decision is a victory for sound science and for affordable housing.”
NAHB had long objected to the listing of the owl by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the later proposed designation of its critical habitat over a wide, 1.2 million acre swath of the Southwest.
Adhering to an August 2003 Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the agency's action was “arbitrary and capricious,” and based on a review of information, science, public comments and its own policy, FWS said in a statement published in the Federal Register April 14 that “ . . . we do not believe that the Arizona [population] of the pygmy owl qualifies as an entity that can be listed under the act.”
FWS's failure to follow its own policy for determining whether to list the owl was the reason NAHB got involved in the Arizona case.
“Given the impact that this listing and critical habitat designation would have on affordability and the local economy, we are glad that FWS complied with its obligations under the law,” Pressly said.
The announcement capped more than nine years of legal wrangling over the status of the pygmy owl, which flourishes just across the border in Mexico but also includes a small population in Arizona, which is considered the northernmost range of the bird. Arizona officials found 18 pygmy owls in the state in 2002, and set aside 1.2 million acres as their critical habitat.
At that time, NAHB economists found that if a 1.2 million-acre habitat designation were to go into effect, construction of new homes would fall by roughly 262 homes per year. The local economy would shrink by $545 million over the following 10 years and local governments would lose $68.3 million in tax and permit revenue that would have been collected otherwise. In the first year alone, 705 jobs would be lost, growing to about 2,750 over 10 years.
Though Tucson is surrounded by vacant land, almost all of it belongs to the state, federal agencies, the military and tribal reservations. Out of 9,184 square miles of nearby Pima County, only 75,000 acres of private land remained in the Tucson area and outside the proposed designation.