Builders Get OK for Impact Study on Canyon Area

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to allow two firms to proceed with studies of how the Cheeseboro Canyon area would be affected by an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 new residents who would live in two proposed developments.

The board voted 4 to 1 to grant developers of the Jordan and Ahmanson ranches the right to apply for county permission to change current open space zoning of the two properties. Supervisor Susan K. Lacy cast the sole vote against the projects.

The two project developers, Potomac Investment Associates and H.F. Ahmanson & Co., made a combined presentation of their respective development proposals, which would bring 4,500 new homes, a PGA tournament golf course, and retail and industrial centers to the largely rural southeastern corner of the county.

County planners estimate that the developments would bring from 10,000 to 15,000 new residents to the area.

The board vote was the first hurdle for the two developments, which still face numerous public hearings over the next two years before they can be built.

Support for the two projects, which go against a variety of county policies that prohibit development in such open-space areas, came from an unusual mix of development interests and environmental groups, including the National Park Service, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and the Ventura County Economic Development Assn.

Terms of Exchange

Developers have offered, in separate proposals, to give a combined 4,605 acres for use as parkland in exchange for $2 million and 60 acres of the Cheeseboro Canyon federal parkland. Those deals would triple Cheeseboro Canyon Park to about 6,700 acres, local park Superintendent Daniel R. Kuehn said in support of the developments.

The developers said their two projects would also earn the financially troubled county between $8 million and $11 million a year in tax revenue.

Supervisor Madge Schaefer, who represents the area, said the board was compelled to allow the developers to proceed with economic and environmental studies “because of the potential for public open space.”

Schaefer also told Potomac Investment Associates, developer of the Jordan Ranch project, that she wants a reduction in the number of homes proposed for the 2,300-acre property. Potomac has proposed building about 1,550 homes in a private, gated community that would include a PGA tournament golf course. The Jordan Ranch property is north of the Ventura Freeway, east of Oak Park and west of Cheeseboro Canyon Park.

H.F. Ahmanson & Co., owner of Home Savings of America, has proposed building 3,000 homes, retail stores, a 3-million-square-foot industrial park and a 200-room hotel on the Ahmanson Ranch property east of Cheeseboro Canyon Park, between Bell Canyon and Hidden Hills.

Present zoning on the Jordan and Ahmanson properties would allow the building of fewer than 100 homes, said county planners, who recommended the projects be rejected.

Opponents who spoke during the four-hour public hearing said that the parkland exchange offered by the developers is not enough to compensate for the added traffic, congestion and air pollution that the projects would bring.

Lacy said in opposing the developments that the county should await the results of a county committee now studying the impacts of future development in similar open-space areas countywide.

Peter Kyros, Potomac spokesman, said it will take between six months and a year to prepare the studies requested by the board.