Luxury Project May Add Slice of Territory to L.A. County

Predictions that Los Angeles County will grow in 1987 may be accurate in a way that urban planners did not expect.

Population aside, a luxury housing project in an area northwest of Calabasas may cause the county to grow in area for the first time in 137 years.

Home Savings of America has petitioned to remove 8 1/2 square miles of ranch land from Ventura County and annex it to Los Angeles County so it can be developed, officials of the two counties said Wednesday.

Officials of both counties said they favor the boundary change, which would give Los Angeles County its first new land since 1850. All that is required for the change is the approval of both county boards of supervisors and the landowner.

The unusual boundary change could clear the way for construction of 3,000 luxury homes, a 3-million-square-foot industrial park, a 200-room hotel and two golf courses on the Ahmanson Ranch. The ranch lies west of Woodland Hills between Bell Canyon and Hidden Hills.

Officials Unavailable

A spokeswoman for Home Savings’ parent company, H. F. Ahmanson & Co., confirmed that the change has been proposed but said company officials familiar with the Calabasas project were unavailable for comment on Wednesday. The Ahmanson company owns both Home Savings and the ranch.

The 5,500-acre ranch is at the southeastern edge of Ventura County, 45 miles from the county seat in Ventura.

Ventura County officials say the rolling, ridge-laced pastureland is too isolated and too large for them to allow urban development there. Ventura County’s 13-year-old master plan requires large subdivisions to be a part of an incorporated city equipped to provide such services as water, sanitation, police and fire protection.

The closest Ventura County city is Simi Valley, separated from the Home Savings site by a steep mountain range.

To Present Case on Jan. 20

Home Savings officials plan to ask Ventura County supervisors on Jan. 20 to waive their policy and change the ranch land’s classification from “open space” to “urban” so the project can proceed.

But, hedging its bets, the company has also petitioned Ventura County to give up the land. At the same time, it has asked officials in Los Angeles County to annex the land.

Joseph M. Eisenhut, the Ventura County planner handling the request, said it is unlikely his county will allow construction while the property is part of Ventura County.

“I have trouble with the proposal to create a new urban area on raw land that is so far removed from county services,” Eisenhut said. “My opinion is it would be easier to get through L. A. County. Here, the Board of Supervisors doesn’t see itself in the urbanization business.”

Robert Braitman, head of Ventura County’s Local Agency Formation Commission, said county administrators are studying the request, which will probably be considered by county supervisors in March.

Such county boundary changes were unworkable until two years ago, when state law was changed, Braitman said.

He said that a boundary change in Calabasas would not be the first for Ventura County since then, however. The county, which was created in 1872, shrank slightly today when a 5,860-acre parcel at its northern edge was annexed by Kern County to allow for a development.

In Los Angeles County, officials said that they also are evaluating the Home Savings request. A vote by supervisors has not been scheduled, however.

Los Angeles County records indicate that existing county boundaries have not been changed since 1889, when Orange County was created on land that had been southern Los Angeles County.

“It seems like that project would be a nice asset to Los Angeles County,” said Leeta Pistone, an aide to 5th District Supervisor Mike Antonovich, whose office is coordinating the annexation review.

‘A Good Tax Base’

“It would provide a good tax base for us and would solve the major problem that Ventura County has with services for the area,” she said, because Los Angeles County already has public services available nearby.

Pistone said the development would also benefit residents of Calabasas and Ventura County’s isolated Bell Canyon residential area by improving traffic access in both areas. Bell Canyon now has only one road leading into it.

But plans filed by the company with Ventura County call for construction of several new streets in the area. They include a southern entrance to Bell Canyon and a looping roadway that would connect Las Virgenes Road at the northern end of Malibu Canyon with Victory Boulevard at the western edge of the San Fernando Valley.