Environmental Concerns : L.A. Asks to Annex 1,011 County Acres West of Chatsworth

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday asked Los Angeles County to extend the city’s boundaries to include 1,011 largely undeveloped acres between Chatsworth and the Ventura County line.

Approved unanimously and without discussion, the annexation request now goes before the county’s Local Agency Formation Commission.

It would be Los Angeles’ largest annexation since 1965, when the city acquired 3,017 acres of what today is a large part of Chatsworth, City Planner Howard Martin said.

Councilman Hal Bernson proposed the annexation as a way for the city to restrict development in the scenic area adjoining his West San Fernando Valley district.

Residents Might Vote

The annexation will require a vote of the area’s 220 residents if 25% of them oppose it by petition at a city hearing. If 50% of the residents object at the hearing, which has not yet been scheduled, no referendum is required, and the annexation is automatically disapproved.

So far, tenants of the Indian Hills Mobile Home Park, which is in the area proposed for annexation, have said they welcome the opportunity to come under the city’s rent-control law.

Now, the area’s zoning is controlled by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, whose approval of a 290-unit condominium project south of the Simi Valley Freeway and west of Topanga Canyon Boulevard angered Bernson.

Bernson has proposed that the city rezone the area to restrict development to large residential lots. The condominium project would be permitted, however, because it was approved before annexation was proposed.

The city Planning Department also supported the annexation as necessary to protect wildlife migration routes into the Santa Monica Mountains from the Santa Susana Mountains and Simi Hills. Deer and an occasional mountain lion are among the animals using the routes, officials say.

Before his recent retirement, Planning Director Calvin Hamilton called for the city to annex a larger, 15,000-acre site, encompassing the area north of the Simi Valley Freeway to the top of Oat Mountain.

But Bernson has questioned the need for the larger annexation, expressing concern about the cost of providing city services to an area that he said would generate less tax revenue than the cost of the services.

He also called the prospect of the larger territory being developed in the next 20 years “very unlikely.”

Bernson’s support is critical because the council generally defers to the council member in whose area a project is located.

Dawson Oppenheimer, a deputy to Supervisor Mike Antonovich, said the supervisor has “no problem” with the annexation. “It apparently is the will of the people” living there, Oppenheimer said.

The annexation would increase the size of the city, now about 465 square miles, by about 1.6 square miles.

The city late last year took the first steps to annex 800 acres of vacant land near Marina del Rey to accommodate a $1-billion office and residential development planned by the Summa Corp.