Habitat Protection
Legal Actions
West Roseville Specific Plan
The Sierra Club, the Sierra Foothills Audubon Society and Loomis sued to challenge Roseville’s City Council approval of the 3,162-acre West Roseville Specific Plan to develop housing for 20,810 people. The agreement with environmental groups calls for a fee of 0.5 percent of the gross sales price on every resale of a single-family home in West Roseville for 20 years following the initial sale. The nonprofit Placer Land Trust will collect the money and use it to buy and preserve open space, with a priority on vernal pool and grassland habitats in western Placer County.
Placer Vineyards
The Placer Vineyards called for the development of 5,230 acres in western Placer County. The Sierra Club and Sierra Foothills Audubon Society obtained a settlement to protect the natural and biological resources in the Plan area. The proposed modifications increase the overall mitigation for Open Space, Agricultural Land and Biological Resources by 35% (increasing mitigation from 1.00 to 1.35 acres of mitigation for each acre of development) while shifting the focus to conservation of ecosystems that provide habitat for multiple species. For example, the proposed measures focus on maintaining the ecological value of vernal pool grasslands as habitat, not just on preserving individual vernal pools.
Bickford Ranch
After a four-year legal battle, litigants in the Bickford Ranch case announced a settlement that will allow the development to move forward in exchange for $6.05 million for the preservation of oak woodland in Placer County on 700 acres of open space.

Yuba Highlands Development
Friends of Spenceville, Sierra Foothills Audubon Society and the Sierra Club helped organize and provided funds for a campaign to stop the Yuba Highlands development of 5,100 units between Spenceville Wildlife Area and Camp Beale. The Yuba County Board of Supervisors approved the project in July 2007 on a 3-2 vote. That vote was followed by a lawsuit over the environmental impact report, referendum petitions, and, soon enough, the death of the project at voters’ hands. The developer ended up selling a 700-acre conservation easement on a portion of the land to the Trust for Public Land (TPL). They also signed an agreement in which the develioper agreed to place the rest of the property under a conservation easement as the TPL lines up more funding.