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Eco-Terrorists Intensifying No-Growth Battles in California

A presentation at PCBC in San Francisco last month focused on how builders can keep themselves from becoming victims of “green collar crime” and also get their projects out from under the barrage of community opposition that can be just as serious an impediment to the production of badly needed housing.

Anyone who profits from the so-called “exploitation of the natural environment” is a potential victim of the economic mayhem that has become the stock-in-trade of ELF, or the Earth Liberation Front, warned Laer Pearce, president of Laer Pearce & Associates in Laguna Hills, CA. “They are a growing force and a threat to all of us.”

The loose-knit organization specializes in arson and claims to have inflicted $100 million in damages on construction sites since 1997, Pearce said. Just prior to the PCBC conference, ELF was suspected of destroying $1.5 million worth of property at a lumberyard in the suburbs of Salt Lake City. In its most devastating raid to date, it burned down a $50 million, five-story apartment building in San Diego.

“With one night’s work, a few individuals can accomplish what years of legal battles and millions of dollars most likely did not,” touts ELF’s press office.

To make matters worse, complained Ken Ryan, principal of EDAW, in Irvine, the environmental extremists who have been thwarting home building efforts are now starting to be perceived as moderates in comparison to fire-brandishing eco-terrorists.

Panelists suggested a number of strategies for successfully battling the enemy at the door, whether or not they are outright criminals:

• At the interface of urban areas and natural lands is where builders will find themselves most at risk, according to Pearce. And if there is a college nearby, “that trumps everything,” he said, because there are “radical professors at college who fire up students who fire up your houses.” Those who feel they are at risk of a criminal attack should alert their local law enforcement leaders and meet with them or security consultants to discuss the precautions they can take.
• If perpetrators of terrorist acts are apprehended, and they have financial asserts, builders could have recourse to a civil remedy, Pearce said. Most of the perpetrators who have been caught have been college students from middle- or upper-class families, he said.
• Builders will have a hard time suing environmentalists for making false claims about their projects, Pearce said. “But your opponents don’t have much integrity, so don’t let their claims go unchallenged” and “never assume that their claims are true.” When falsehoods are discovered, refute them in a letter to the president of their organization and send copies to the city council, mayor and other decision makers, he recommended. “Use their own words against them.”
• To create a more receptive environment for new housing, Ryan recommended using local-based design that incorporates a sense of place and aspects of great neighborhoods; tapping into local community values; emphasizing green building strategies; finding opportunities to identify the public benefit of the project and quality of life issues. “Recruit supporters,” he said, “and expose the extremists. Take the high road, keep your message simple and talk about the community instead of the project.”
• Tim Paone, a partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, cautioned that “courts don’t have the expertise to deal with land use decisions. They can delay your project and frustrate your efforts.” Agreeing with his co-panelists who counseled getting into the trenches and going door-to-door to rally support, Paone indicated that education can be a more productive approach than the two other solutions — litigation and legislation. “Work with the public agencies,” many of which are accountable to no one, he said. “That’s where the education needs to be done.”

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