Project in Walnut Hits Opposition : Homeowners Cool to Developer’s Plan

It is a city that draws affluent families to its bucolic suburban life style, prestigious schools and safe neighborhoods. Half-million-dollar homes are not uncommon and residents take neighborly pride in their hometown.

But a number of residents have given the developer who wants to build 695 luxury homes, a hotel, and recreational facilities on the last undeveloped site in the city a decidedly unfriendly welcome.

The developer, Newport Beach-based The William Lyon Co., has scaled down the project several times since the city first rejected the original proposal to build 1,200 homes on a hilly 551.5-acre site just south of West Covina and east of the BKK Landfill.

Drain Resources

Despite the reduction in size, dozens of residents and several homeowner associations still bristle at the thought of pristine hillsides being graded and leveled to make way for extravagant homes, a 125- to 200-room hotel, an equestrian trail, a nine-hole golf course and a shopping center.

Residents say the development would pose landslide and earthquake hazards. Some of them are worried about the proximity of the site to the landfill, and fear that the development’s wells could be contaminated one day by chemicals from the dump that have seeped into the ground water.

Consultants for the Lyon Co., one of the largest home builders in the state, are expected to release an environmental impact report for the project next month. At an Aug. 1 meeting called to collect comments for inclusion in the report, more than 50 people showed up in protest. The project’s more vocal opponents have vowed they will continue the fight to kill the plan.

‘We Will Resist’

“There are too many damn people here already,” Maurice Cofer, president of the Gartel Fuente Homeowners Assn., said last week. The association, which includes homeowners in the area bounded by La Puente Road, Amar Road and Lemon Avenue, claims approximately 400 members. “We will resist it any way we can. We are opposed to the raping of the hills simply for profits.”

Cofer said the five Walnut homeowners associations have a plan of action to ensure that the City Council will reject the developer’s latest plan, but would not disclose details.

What concerns residents and city officials most is that the project calls for twice as many homes as are allowed under the General Plan.

The area is zoned for .6 units per acre because of deep ravines that make access to the hilly slopes difficult, said Planning Director George Shindo. The developer wants to build 1.28 units per acre. Those homes would be concentrated on 60% of the site. In order for the project to be approved, the City Council must amend the plan to allow for the increased density.

“It’s the same old story of people saying, ‘I’m here, I’m looking at these beautiful hills and I want to keep looking at the beautiful hills,’ ” said Shindo.

Cutting Up Hills

“They’ve been cutting up hills all over the city,” said Kyen Jenkins, president of Snowcreek Homeowners Assn. “What is the rush to develop it all now? Walnut has gone through a major growth in last several years.”

But the Lyon Co.’s manager for the project, Bryan Austin, said the zoning rules were based on misconceptions about the area’s topography. The hills could actually support a higher density of homes if a significant amount of grading were done. That would cost from $35 to $40 million, Austin said. He pointed out that the area across the street from the site, west of Lemon Avenue, is zoned for 2.5 units per acre, and 1.0 unit per acre is allowed on land east of Lemon.

Austin said that instead of fighting the project, the city should welcome more residents, because the $700,000 homes would provide a wider property-tax base. And the hotel and shopping center would provide the city with more sales-tax revenue, he said.

Revenue Producer

“The city has been looking for revenue-generating uses to support current budget levels,” he said. “That’s the primary reason the hotel was considered.”

Councilman Ray Watson said that more commercial development, especially large department stores, would be desirable. Watson said he is “keeping an open mind” about the proposal until the impact report is issued. But, he added: “(I) can’t see where adding more homes is going to be any long-term benefit to the city because it’ll cost us more in services. If it doesn’t benefit the city, I’m not going to vote in favor of it.”

He said he was concerned about the environmental impact of developing the hills so close to a dump site, despite a 2,000-foot-wide “buffer zone” around the BKK Landfill which cannot be built on.

“There are fault areas and slide areas,” he said. “I don’t want to see people spend money for homes and then have a major earthquake wipe out everything they have.”

Austin said the proposal’s detractors are only a few loud voices, and that the Lyon Co. had sent out more than 600 notices in the area, but “only 60 people were in attendance.”

City Manager Linda Holmes disagreed, saying objections to the proposed development are coming not only from the immediate area but from throughout the city and from residents in West Covina, which is adjacent to the site on the north side.

“(Opposition) wasn’t just in the area,” Holmes said. “It’s throughout the city, the Creekside houses, Hunters Hill, Marlborough all throughout the city they’re complaining.”