Preservation Tool : Annexation of Santa Susanas Tract Backed

Los Angeles Planning Director Calvin Hamilton on Monday called for city annexation of a vast tract of unincorporated land in the Santa Susana Mountains above Chatsworth to protect the area’s spectacular rock formations and preserve its role as a key wildlife migration route to the Santa Monica Mountains.

At a sparsely attended meeting in Chatsworth, Hamilton--who is scheduled to retire as city planning chief Friday after 20 years in the post--also called for creation of a joint powers authority by the city and other jurisdictions. The authority would supervise land use in the area and raise money to purchase property or development rights from private owners.

Annexation would take land-use decisions out of the hands of Los Angeles County, which “is not particularly sensitive” to natural resource issues, and has, in many cases, permitted higher-density development than the city, Hamilton said.

“I’m not blaming anyone,” he said. “I think it’s just a fact.”

City-Provided Services

Hamilton said the city probably would be called on to absorb and provide services to the area once intensive development occurs.

Hamilton said he will discuss the proposals with his successor, Kenneth C. Topping, and with Mayor Tom Bradley and City Councilman Hal Bernson, who represents the area.

This “is going to step on some toes,” Hamilton said. “It is going to be controversial.”

But, he added, “it seems to me we owe the public, to say nothing of the animals. . . a responsibility to protect that area.”

The annexation would involve about 15,000 acres from north of the Simi Valley Freeway to the top of Oat Mountain and the adjoining ridge, and west from Chatsworth to the Ventura County line.

City and Los Angeles County officials are negotiating a more limited annexation of 1,011 acres south of the Simi Valley Freeway and mainly west of Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

Route for Migrating Animals

Hamilton also released a 3-year-old report to the city Planning Department, which recommended the annexation and other steps to preserve the Santa Susanas and neighboring Simi Hills as a route for migrating animals, such as deer, coyotes and foxes.

“This area is the only remaining path of species circulation and gene flow for the Santa Monica Mountains habitat,” the report said.

“If development and transportation arteries cut this vital link, the Santa Monica Mountains will, within a few years, become an isolated island habitat, negating many of the resource protection efforts now being wrought in that area.”

Hamilton said the June, 1983, report, prepared by a researcher at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, under contract to the city, was withheld until now to give a citizens advisory committee time to consider revisions in the Chatsworth-Porter Ranch district plan.

The committee recently recommended that the city annex land north of the Simi Valley Freeway and work with other government jurisdictions to regulate the area as a “permanent wildlife corridor.”

Hamilton said a joint powers authority probably would involve, at a minimum, the city and county of Los Angeles, as well as Simi Valley and Ventura County, into which the Santa Susanas extend. He said state and federal parks agencies that have been acquiring parkland in and near the Santa Monica Mountains might also take part.

Tuesday afternoon’s meeting, held in a bank building, was organized by Jan Hinkston, a member of the citizens advisory committee and of the Santa Susana Mountain Park Assn., a conservation group.

Aside from Hamilton and two reporters, the meeting was attended by seven citizens and public officials from Los Angeles and Simi Valley. Bradley and Bernson were not represented.

Before the meeting, Bernson had said in a telephone interview that he has pushed the pending annexation west of Topanga Canyon Boulevard. He said county approval of a large condominium project in the mountains triggered his interest in the annexation.

“We just don’t want to see that area proliferated with a lot of high-density apartments, condominiums” and commercial developments, Bernson said.

However, Bernson said he does not favor city absorption of the larger area north of the Simi Valley Freeway.