Rural Group Bucks Trend by Welcoming Developers

A group of Sylmar property owners say they are resigned to the loss of their foothill community’s rural character, so they have organized to make sure they profit from it.

In a reversal of the familiar cry of homeowners groups throughout the city, the 225-member Sylmar Landowners for Fair Development are generally calling for the elimination of agricultural and horse-keeping property in their neighborhood to make room for more single-family homes, high density condominiums and apartments, and even light industry.

“Slowly, we have awakened to the fact that we can no longer live our lives as we have,” the group’s neighborhood recruitment letter states. “We find ourselves bottled up and holding property that is no longer valuable as livestock-keeping land.”

The group hopes that strength in numbers will allow it to exert more influence in pushing for higher density zoning designations when the Sylmar community plan--the blueprint for future development--undergoes revision by the Los Angeles Planning Department beginning in fall.

The 14-year-old Sylmar community plan will be among the first of 35 plans citywide that will be revised in the next seven years because their 20-year life expectancy is drawing to a close, said city planner Robert H. Sutton.

While other homeowner groups across the city frequently take on big-time developers in a battle to preserve their neighborhoods of single-family homes, in Sylmar, it is largely horses versus houses when it comes to future land uses.

The pro-development objectives of the Sylmar Landowners for Fair Development, which includes mostly homeowners with large pieces of rural property as well as some developers and business owners, have alarmed leaders of longtime Sylmar organizations who promise to fight the landowners.

The landowners are generally seen as community dissidents out to enrich themselves “at the expense of further degrading the Sylmar life style,” said Dean Cohen, a leader of the Sylmar Civic Assn., one of the community’s larger resident groups.

Indeed, it is disparate Sylmar life styles that are dividing this community, nestled along the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains on the northeastern border of Los Angeles.

Members of the new landowners group own property--some parcels as big as 2 1/2 acres--in a pocket of agricultural land that is overshadowed by apartment and condominium complexes and surrounded by Foothill Boulevard, industrial buildings and high-density housing.

They complain it has become dangerous to ride horses from their back yards past apartments, through traffic, up a narrow cement sidewalk and across the Foothill Freeway overpass to reach popular mountain trails.

“Due to the fact I can no longer enjoy horses or livestock because of the surroundings, the area should be rezoned for condominiums,” said Don Manthey, who lives on a street where condominiums abut his back yard.

The emergence of the vocal landowner group has brought bitter arguments over Sylmar’s destiny out in the open, months before the opening round even begins in City Hall as changes to the community plan are considered.

Haven for Horse Owners

“We will fight to keep what little bit of the country we have left in this city,” vowed Gwen Allen, a 37-year Sylmar resident who is president of Equestrian Trails, one of the largest equestrian organizations in the San Fernando Valley. “We will not let them get ahold of the master plan and start wiping out horse property.”

Sylmar has long been known as the city’s rural outpost, a community where the working man and woman could afford to buy a piece of the country life, raise children around horses, sheep and chickens while still living reasonably close to downtown Los Angeles. Close access to hundreds of miles of trails in the Angeles National Forest created a haven for horse owners.

But the same expanses of land that made for affordable ranch homes with back yard stables has in the 1980s made way for affordable tract houses, condominiums and industrial buildings. Further development was ushered in with the opening of the Foothill Freeway in 1981, which cleared the way for a speedy commute downtown.

Sylmar became the fastest-growing area of the city between 1980 and 1986, with a 27% increase in population, from 41,922 in 1980 to 53,392, according to Los Angeles Planning Department figures.

Pastoral Life Style Choked to Death

Most of the growth took place between 1984 and 1986, when the population exceeded by 3,000 the number that was projected 14 years ago for the year 1990.

The result is that in a matter of a few years, longtime residents, such as those in the landowners group, have watched condominiums and apartments rise up next to their chicken coops and horse stables, choking their pastoral life style to death.

“We don’t belong here anymore,” said Sam Goodman, vice president of the landowner group, who owns a ranch home on two acres. “It’s hard to make people understand that horse-keeping is no longer desirable here.”

“We never dreamed we would be surrounded by condos,” said Manthey, who several years ago kept five sheep, seven horses, rabbits and chickens in his sprawling yard. “There is no way we can ride horses around here like we used to. It’s too dangerous. I want another chance at buying a house where my life style will be ensured.”

If the zoning is changed on their land so single-family homes and condominiums can be built on it, members of the group say they will be able to buy that life style once again.

Goodman said he has met with appraisers and figures he could sell his 2 1/2 acres, which is zoned for agricultural uses, for about $250,000. He said he could double or triple that figure if that land is rezoned to allow a developer to build a cluster of houses there.

Hope to Find Middle Ground

Linda Chambers, president of the landowners group, said the organization is not “anti-horse” and intends to petition officials to improve bridle trails and an existing riding arena. Many of the landowners do not want to leave Sylmar, she said, but instead want to move to other horse-keeping properties closer to the mountains. Furthermore, they hope to find some middle ground and work with their critics.

She said she expected controversy when the group formed, but said it is a shame that “people think we are in this only for the money. . . . If we wanted to cut and run we would have already done so.”

In a recent newsletter in response to Cohen’s comment that the group’s plans degrade the community, Chambers wrote, “one cannot degrade something if in fact, one is increasing its value.”

Councilman Ernani Bernardi, who represents Sylmar and has met with the landowners group said undoubtedly real estate agents and developers are promising landowners more money for their land if zoning is changed.

“It’s the American way to make a fast buck, but we have to consider other points of view, too,” Bernardi said.

“Certainly there is going to be development,” he said. “But the working man is entitled to open space, too, and this is an area where he can pursue activities that normally go to the more affluent.”

Bernardi said he will soon appoint a 15-member citizens advisory panel that will meet with city planners to update the Sylmar community plan next fall. The committee will be representative of all the interests in the area, drawing members from all Sylmar organizations.

“Right now there is divisiveness and strong feelings on both sides,” Bernardi said, adding that the committee and upcoming public hearing on the future of Sylmar will “give everyone the opportunity to fully express themselves.”