Peril to Wildlife Cited : Lawsuit Hits Mountain Homes Plan

A Chatsworth environmental organization has gone to court to stop a subdivision of multimillion-dollar houses in the Santa Susana Mountains, alleging that the project would threaten endangered plants and animals.

Santa Susana Mountain Park Assn. filed suit against the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the Planning Commission to contest their approval of the 338-acre development without an environmental impact report assessing potential damage to plants and wildlife, including deer, eagles, owls and lizards.

“The project will significantly disrupt the last remaining path for safe migration of wild animals through the Santa Susana Pass . . . to and from the San Gabriel Mountains,” according to the suit, which was filed Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court.

The suit also alleges that the development would “destroy a significant habitat of an endangered species” known as the Santa Susana tarweed, a yellow-flowered plant that is found only in the sandstone of the Santa Susana Mountains.

71 $2-Million Homes

At issue is Indian Wells Estates, a development west of Topanga Canyon Boulevard that is planned to have 71 homes averaging about 6,000 square feet and costing about $2 million each, said Dave Chambers, an engineer for the developer. Construction is scheduled to start in the fall.

Chambers did not dispute the environmental group’s contention that wildlife migration patterns would be altered.

“Certainly any development has an incremental impact on wildlife . . . but if this were a reason for not having development, we wouldn’t have development in many places in this area,” Chambers said. “We’re trying to come up with a product that has a minimal amount of impact. We’re trying to retain the rugged beauty. We’re not out to rape the environment.”

He said the company should not have to prepare an environmental impact report, which could take six months, because it already has compiled a report evaluating the project’s impact on surrounding oak trees and archeological deposits.

If a new report is required, he said, “We’d put a cover sheet on it and call it an EIR.”

Did What County Required

“We did everything that the county required of us and that includes a whole lot of things we weren’t enthused about doing, like giving up lots, redesigning lots and agreeing to impose quite a few conditions,” Chambers said. “But the association seems to think that the county is just letting us do all kinds of things with no thought for the future.”

Lee Stark, who heads the impact analysis section of the county Department of Regional Planning, said an environmental impact report is not needed because the developer has met all the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act.

A county advisory committee of six environmental experts had determined that wildlife would not be disrupted by the proposed development, Stark said.

“From what I’ve been told by the experts, wildlife movement will continue through the property primarily because of the low-density nature of development,” he said.

Stark said the lawsuit’s request for an environmental impact report may be simply an effort to halt a controversial project.

‘Easiest Thing to Attack’

“It’s not unusual for a special-interest group to challenge the environmental documentation if they don’t like a project. That’s the easiest thing to attack,” he said.

But Jan Hinkston, who founded Santa Susana Mountain Park Assn. in 1970 to lobby for preservation of the mountain area, defended the legal challenge.

“This is a county-designated ecological area and the cumulative effect of this project was not even considered,” she said. “Are we going to have wall-to-wall houses? We need to see the scenic beauty. We need a buffer zone for people as well as wildlife.”