L.A. Approves Vote on Annexation for Area Next to Chatsworth

Voters living within 1,011 acres of unincorporated area west of Chatsworth will decide in a special election, tentatively set for Aug. 18, whether they want to be annexed by the City of Los Angeles.

The City Council decided Tuesday, on the advice of the city attorney, to hold the election. Although the council had earlier agreed to annex the area, state law calls for an election when at least 15% of the voters in an area sign petitions opposing annexation.

The decision came despite a claim by annexation opponents that they had gathered more than enough signatures to kill the proposal without an election. An annexation is automatically disapproved if opposed by more than 50% of the voters within the area.

If approved in the election, it would be the city’s largest annexation in 22 years. The area is south of the Simi Valley Freeway west of Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

According to the city clerk’s office, 78 people--or 41% of the area’s 189 voters--signed petitions protesting annexation.

However, Peter J. Nouguier, part owner of the Indian Hills Mobile Home Village, disputes the city’s figures. He contends that 90 of the 174 voters in the area oppose annexation, for a total of 51%.

“I am not afraid of an election,” Nouguier said after the council action. “Why should the city have to go through that expense?”

City officials, though, said they have no plans to check into Nouguier’s claims. Assistant City Clerk William Ashdown said the city has to go by the figures provided by the registrar-recorder’s office. “We have no choice in the matter,” he said.

Nouguier, meanwhile, said he will explore the possibility of legal action to stop the election.

Councilman Hal Bernson, who would represent the territory if it is annexed, charged last month that many of the voters who signed anti-annexation petitions had done so “under duress.”

Bernson said Tuesday he could not provide specifics. But, he said, “It’s difficult to intimidate somebody in the voting booth.”

Bernson has pushed the annexation to enable the city to restrict development in the scenic, largely undeveloped area and to protect wildlife routes into the Santa Monica Mountains from the Simi Hills and the Santa Susana Mountains. Now, the area is under control of the pro-development county Board of Supervisors.

Some landowners have expressed fear that rezoning would reduce property values, and Nouguier said he opposes annexation because of uncertainty over whether the city would renew the Indian Hills mobile-home park’s operating permit. But annexation also has received support from residents of the mobile-home park who welcome the prospect of coming under the city’s rent-control law.

It would be the city’s largest annexation since 1965, when Los Angeles acquired 3,017 acres of what today is a large part of Chatsworth. The annexation would increase the size of the city, now about 465 square miles, by about 1.6 square miles.