County OKs Posh Homes in Pass Above Chatsworth

Despite protests that approval could lead to the extinction of a rare native wildflower, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Thursday gave the go-ahead for a luxury subdivision in the Santa Susana Pass above Chatsworth.

The board approved on a 4-0 vote a conditional-use permit and tentative tract map allowing Indian Wells Estates Inc. of Chatsworth to build 71 homes on a 338-acre site north of the Simi Valley Freeway.

The site covers the primary habitat of the yellow-flowered Santa Susana tarweed, a shrublike plant that is on the endangered species list.

Officials of the Santa Susana Mountain Park Assn., a 16-year-old organization dedicated to preserving the mountains, said after the meeting that they may sue the county to block the development.

Once contemplated for purchase as a national park, the site is among striking rock outcroppings that have served as the backdrop for hundreds of Western movies.

Wildlife Corridor

Because of the rare plants, and because the area is a wildlife corridor for birds and small animals, two parts of the site are designated by the county’s general plan as significant ecological areas.

Association member Barbara Ryan criticized the county for failing to require a detailed environmental impact report on the area, and said the supervisors based approval of the project on incomplete and inaccurate studies.

The county conducted archeological surveys of only the flat parts of the site, stipulating that developers are to stop construction and call in experts if they encounter an archeological resource, she said.

“How many bulldozer operators can see over their blade, much less recognize an archeological resource or want to stop?” Ryan scoffed.

“They didn’t address any of the critical issues,” she said. “They just sort of seemed to be staging a play up there. We’re very disappointed.”

‘Went Through the Motions’

“They went through the motions, that’s what they did,” said association founder Jan Hinkson.

But Rich Henderson, principal planning assistant for the county Department of Regional Planning, said developers are “doing a pretty good job. They’re leaving the thing pretty natural.”

Ninety-three oaks on the rock site will be felled, but most are already dead or dying from a fire several years ago, said Henderson.

The area is zoned agricultural, with two-acre minimum lots, and project developer Eugene Kilmer could have built as many as 170 homes on the site, said Henderson.

The county zoning ordinance requires a conditional-use permit for all hillside development, said David Vannatta, planning and development deputy for Supervisor Mike Antonovich, in whose district the development is to be built.

Kilmer said the average home in the development will cost about $2 million. Plans call for construction to begin within a year and be completed by 1991, he said.

Lee Stark, section head of the county Department of Regional Planning’s impact analysis section, said building plans will avoid nearly all the major tarweed areas.

Thrives in Graded Areas

“There will be a few plants lost, but it’s also a known factor that these plants tend to thrive in graded areas where you have disturbed them, so the development may in fact create new habitats for the plant,” he said.

As a condition of approval, the developer agreed to fence other tarweed areas during construction, Henderson said.

Kilmer said his company will pay scientists from California State University, Northridge to study ways to proliferate the plant. Homeowners will be required to allow scientists on their properties for studies.

Hialeah Springs, a natural spring on the site that was capped more than two decades ago so that water could be diverted to a farmhouse, will be uncapped and returned to its natural flow, said Stark.

Off-road vehicles will be excluded, as will horses, except on an equestrian trail the developer will be required to include.