Monterey County Regional Conservation Investment Strategy RFP

1. APPROVE Request for Proposals for the Monterey County Regional Conservation Investment Strategy, subject to counsel approval;
2. AUTHORIZE staff to publish the RFP, and return to the Board of Directors with a recommendation for approval of a consultant; and
3. APPROVE the use of funds from the approved project budget for this contract in an amount not-to-exceed $328,150.

This request for proposals will seek bids from qualified consultants to assist the Agency with the Monterey County Regional Conservation Investment Strategy.

In September, 2016 the State created a pilot program for the development of Regional Conservation Investment Strategies.  This program was modified in 2017 to expand its reach to transportation infrastructure agencies.  The Transportation Agency recently received a $375,810 grant from the Caltrans Adaptation Planning grant program to develop the Monterey County Regional Conservation Investment Strategy.  The Transportation Agency is matching this grant with $48,690 of Measure X funds from the Habitat Management / Advance Mitigation program.  The receipt of these grant funds leverages the Measure X funds over seven times.

The Monterey County Regional Conservation Investment Strategy (RCIS) will assess the vulnerability of species and habitat to climate change related stressors and pressures (drought, wildfire, and landslides, among others); develop conservation strategies to improve resiliency from the identified stressors; and define a framework to finance the implementation of these conservation strategies as compensatory mitigation from new transportation improvements. The RCIS will further consider the conservation benefit of preserving working land for agricultural uses.  The types of conservation strategies that are eligible to be included in an RCIS, which can then be turned into mitigation credits, will both directly and indirectly contribute to the climate resiliency of Monterey County’s transportation infrastructure.  Some examples of potential conservation strategies that could be identified through the RCIS process include:

• Wildlife crossings under or over State highways and highly travelled regional corridors, such as the Scenic State Route 68 between Monterey and Salinas, to preserve and improve habitat connectivity while reducing animal-vehicle conflict points;
• Wetlands protection and restoration that protects transportation infrastructure from the effects of flooding and storm water impacts, such as State Route 156 in north Monterey County; and
• Land acquisition for species and habitat restoration and conservation (including preservation of agricultural lands) that results in more drought-tolerant and healthy habitat that in turn protects nearby infrastructure from climate-related events such as wildfires and landslides.

With the passage of Senate Bill 1 and Measure X, Monterey County’s self-help transportation sales tax measure, the Transportation Agency for Monterey County has habitat mitigation needs for numerous regional transportation improvements in corridors that are highly constrained by environmental factors, with some projects lying within the coastal zone.  This presents an opportunity to develop the Monterey County Regional Conservation Investment Strategy to identify conservation strategies with co-benefits to transportation infrastructure climate resiliency and public safety, and then implement those strategies as advance mitigation for the transportation improvements.

Currently, transportation project mitigation is conducted on a project-by-project basis. However, for long-lead projects in sensitive areas, such as the State Route 156 project in north Monterey County, opportunities to negotiate mitigation and purchase property under the traditional process can take many years, and the project may still have impacts to certain habitat and species that are unavoidable.  Meanwhile, escalating land values over time will only add to project costs, while land acquisition negotiations can delay project delivery. Furthermore, the availability of properties that are appropriate for mitigation can be severely limited by habitat type and what land might be available now may be lost in the near future due to degradation or other non-transportation development.

With the Monterey County Regional Conservation Investment Strategy, the Transportation Agency is seeking to initiate early adaptation and mitigation planning, and this Request for Proposals is to select a consulting firm to assist with the development and preparation of the program.  The timeline for the Request for Proposals is as follows: