System for Monitoring Land Use to Face 1st Test

Slow-growth advocates view the 1,830-home Northbridge project proposed by the Valencia Co. in Saugus as the first test of the effectiveness of Los Angeles County’s new computerized method of evaluating development proposals.

The method, called the development monitoring system, or DMS, is the keystone of a settlement approved last week by Superior Court Judge Norman L. Epstein, ending a 14-year civil battle over growth controls for the county’s remaining open space. The settlement modified the county’s General Plan to provide a blueprint for development in the county through the year 2000.

The DMS, a sophisticated computer system, is designed to promote orderly growth in the booming unincorporated urban areas of the county, including the Santa Clarita, Antelope and east San Gabriel valleys, the Las Virgenes and Calabasas areas and Malibu. It will determine if a proposed construction project could be absorbed by a community without overburdening roads, fire and police services, water supplies, schools and libraries.

To Be Reviewed Thursday

The Northbridge project, seen as the test case for the DMS, will be reviewed Thursday by the Board of Supervisors. If the computer determines that the area could not handle an influx of newcomers, the developer must provide the needed services or the project must be denied.

It is a “developer’s option to scale back a project, await adequate capacity or arrange for capacity expansion,” said James A. Kushner, a law professor who as the court-appointed referee in the case hammered out the settlement.

While slow-growth proponents are pleased that access to information about development projects will be improved under the settlement, many said they fear that developers could sidestep a denial. The settlement says that supervisors can approve a project if they decide “overriding considerations” of social benefit make it desirable--a provision homeowners and environmentalists see as a “loophole” in the system.

Skepticism Voiced

“The bottom line is that as of Tuesday, when this was adopted, if the county should approve a tract that overburdens the infrastructure, they will be in violation of the law,” said Santa Clarita Valley community activist Alan Cameron. “Everybody thinks they will go ahead and violate the law.”

The Northbridge subdivision in San Francisquito Canyon was approved in February by the Regional Planning Commission but was appealed to the board by nearby homeowners who claim existing roads, water supplies and schools are inadequate to handle so many new residents.

“I’ve been asking for benchmarks--like when is a school district overcrowded,” said Jan Heidt, of the Santa Clarita Valley Homeowners Coalition, which joined other homeowners and environmentalist groups in the lawsuit. “The first thing we need is a test case and this may very well be it.”

This first application of the new plan “will be very much observed,” said Connie Worden, vice chairman of the Santa Clarita City Formation Committee. “Will the supervisors easily find overriding considerations?”

She added that the DMS will have little effect on development within the proposed city but could slow building down outside the city.

Does Not Foresee Problems

Ray Ristic, the county Planning Department official who has headed development of the DMS, said he doubts that supervisors will take advantage of the so-called loophole in the plan.

“If a project has merit, and there are ways to take care of the problems, then the project can be approved,” he said.

Ristic said the development qualification procedures were set forth in a very general manner in the county’s 1980 general plan.

The court settlement “made me very happy,” Ristic said. “The genesis of what the DMS was really goes back to the 1980 General Plan. It was already in place. We’ll just keep on working to show that we’re already doing what they wanted.”

The county began putting the plan together in November, 1980, when it hired a computer services consultant, Ristic said.

“It took some time to put the program together and purchase the hardware,” he said. “In April, 1985, in its infancy, we began using it in the Santa Clarita Valley. What it does is allow us to monitor the General Plan.”

Several factors are already in the computer, including tentative tract approvals, pending projects and vacant tracts.

To determine if a project is feasible, information provided by the schools and water district, the boundaries of the project and other data are fed into the computer.

On the Northbridge project, he said, the issue may come down to schools. But, Ristic said, the county may have been preempted because the $1.50 per square foot state law now enables school districts to collect from developers for school construction.

‘There’s nothing to prevent us from doing an analysis of that,” he said.