Leona Valley’s ‘Country’ Folks Feel the Squeeze : Growth: Some say a 7,200-house plan offers the potential for disaster, and others say it might benefit the entire Antelope Valley. : LEONA

Just west of Palmdale, between Portal Ridge on the north and the Sierra Pelona Mountains on the south, lies the small and narrow Leona Valley and its principal community of the same name.

Life tends to be a little slower for the 1,600 residents of Leona Valley. Most residents consider themselves “country”--which they say makes them truly appreciate the high desert land they live on.

Water is scarce--most residences rely on wells. Brush fires during the summer months are a continual threat. And whenever residents feel a slight rumble, they wonder if it’s because of a passing truck on Elizabeth Lake Road--the main artery through Leona Valley--or because the town sits on the San Andreas Fault.

But now many in the community see a more immediate danger to their lifestyle: a 7,200-house development to be built on the nearby 11,500-acre Ritter Ranch, which is owned by Merv Adelson--former chairman of Lorimar Telepictures who recently separated from his wife, TV newswoman Barbara Walters--and his partner, Irwin Molasky. Construction of single-family homes is scheduled to begin in 1993 just outside the western boundary of Palmdale and continue until 2015, when two-acre mini-ranches will be completed a few miles from the community of Leona Valley.

Schools, shops, an amphitheater, equestrian center, golf course and walkways are all to be part of the Ritter Ranch complex, with about 7,500 acres expected to remain as open space.

A Leona Valley town meeting in November involving 31-year-old Peter Wenner, Ritter Ranch’s project manager, became a shouting match, and although discussions between town representatives and the Ritter Ranch Associates have begun, there remains a wide chasm of mistrust on both sides.

Adelson declined to comment on his plans, but newly elected town Councilman Norm Wolstein, 39, cited the residents’ major concerns: possible water shortages; a desire to preserve the wetlands (an area just south of Elizabeth Lake Road, with its own characteristic wildlife and ecology); an influx of traffic on Elizabeth Lake Road, much of it heading for nearby Bouquet Canyon Road, which leads to Los Angeles; and the developers’ request for annexation by the city of Palmdale.

Wolstein wants Leona Valley to retain the attractions that drew him and his family there last year from Sepulveda. It was great “to get out of the congested crime-ridden city,” he said, yet still be close enough to commute to his aerospace job in Northridge.

“We have a cherry festival and a parade with all the kids every year in Leona Valley,” he said. “There’s a July Fourth picnic--without fireworks. We have community meetings; people get involved here. And they’re very friendly. It’s a great place.”

Mary Ann Floyd, 50, said, “If the project goes through, the current residents of Leona Valley become ‘Old Town,’ ” adding that people would be economically shut out of the new project.

The new housing units are expected to cost between $175,000 to more than $500,000, while the price of an average existing house on a three-acre lot in Leona Valley is about $250,000.

“You’ve got the potential for disaster here,” Floyd said. “Fifty percent of us get our water from wells. We’ve learned to live with the environment. City folk get the idea you get water by turning on the tap and that chickens come from Styrofoam containers in the meat department. There’s an end to everything, and if you stretch it too far. . . ,” she said, shaking her head.

Mark Johnstone, 36, a resident for two years, said he loves being able to look at the sky at night and see the stars.

“I don’t want to see the valley cut up into little pieces with one acre or less,” he said, adding that lot sizes in the area now average about three acres. “I’m concerned about smog, traffic, water, crime, sewers, my whole country way of life disappearing.”

But not everyone in Leona Valley regards the Ritter Ranch project as an intrusion.

“We knew one day it would be developed,” said Gloria Bryant O’Brien, who has lived in Leona Valley 35 years.

“The land-use people,” she said, referring to the slow-growth advocates, “are all new people, and they assumed this valley grew the way it was by itself.

“The sellers have a right to split that land into 60 different developers if they want. If they did, we’d be dealing with 60 different groups of people. Considering what that could be, this is OK with me,” she said. “This particular group has what looks to me to be more than just a reasonable plan, it looks thoughtful. The development on the Leona Valley end will be so sparse, you wouldn’t see it. The other end is the denser housing.”

Ralph Ritter, 61, former owner of the ranch, views the situation in terms of hard reality.

His grandfather, John E. Ritter, came to Leona Valley with his wife to homestead 160 acres in the 1880s. His sons acquired additional land, and by World War II the 12,000-acre Ritter Ranch produced wheat, cattle, hay, barley, honey, grapes and wine.

But today, as Ritter bent down on one knee and ran the soil of his former ranch through his fingers, then watched it blow away, he said economics don’t make farming feasible any longer.

Before his family sold the land to investors for just under $1 million in 1957 and leased it back until 1972, the net income on the ranch was about $50,000 in a good year, he said. “We couldn’t gross enough to meet the taxes in the late 1960s,” he said. Ritter Ranch Associates purchased the land from the investors in 1989.

“Dry-land farming takes a lot out of the soil,” he said. (Dry-land farming uses little water, and is beneficial for such crops as barley and other grains.) “When we have wet years here, you can grow a good crop. But the land just gets wore out. It’s used up.”

Ritter, a former Leona Valley resident, lives in nearby Wrightwood, working for the developers as a consultant. His job is to try to explain to local residents the advantages they would realize from the project.

“I know the politics of the valley,” Ritter said. “Over the last couple of months, I’ve interviewed close to 50% of the families there. After I interview them, then they feel fairly good about it. Some of them don’t want any development, even someone building a house next door to them. But most people have an open mind.”

Clyde Evans, Palmdale planning director, said of the development: “There are a lot of really good opportunities for all parties concerned. It has the potential of being a very dynamic project for all of the Antelope Valley, but there are still issues needed to be resolved, such as the question of the interface between Ritter Ranch and Leona Valley.”

The Antelope Valley-East Kern Water District is studying the water supply, and the wetlands concern is being addressed by various ecological groups. Also, an environmental impact study of the project is about to begin.

Some of the residents fighting Ritter Ranch realize that development of some kind is going to go through and that there is little they can do about it.

“I recognize that property owners have rights to develop their property,” Johnstone said. “The only thing I’m asking is, do it within certain guidelines. Make it compatible with the way we are now.”

Wolstein said the developer has been gradually moving toward more accommodation, a different tactic from that used during the initial meeting last November between Wenner of Ritter Ranch Associates and Leona Valley.

Attempting to explain the project to about 300 townspeople in broad terms, Wolstein said the meeting at the Leona Valley community center quickly degenerated into an emotional screaming match.

“Ritter Ranch Associates wasn’t prepared to go into much detail,” Wolstein said, “and I think that was perceived as if he was holding information back. We were thinking the worst and he didn’t do anything to dispel our fears.” For his part, Wenner refuses to talk about what happened that night, but since then, he and other Ritter Ranch representatives have been meeting with Leona Valley residents in groups no larger than three or four at a time.

“We went to the town meeting to get out the facts of the project,” said project manager Wenner, who presented the preliminary plans for the project. “Nothing is carved in stone,” he added. “This is a first cut, going in to get comments. If we weren’t interested in the residents’ input, they wouldn’t be able to see this. Leona Valley has been prominent in our minds since the very first day.”

To make sure its concerns are addressed, and at the suggestion of the office of County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, whose district includes northern Los Angeles County, Leona Valley elected its Town Council. “We don’t have any legal authority because we’re not incorporated,” Wolstein said, “but we can advise, and the community can speak with one common voice.”

The election, on July 10, had 16 candidates running for five permanent council seats and two alternates. Of 945 registered voters in Leona Valley, 437 voted, and six of the seven seats were filled by slow-growth advocates, including Wolstein.

“It’s helped already,” Wolstein said of the council. “There have already been conversations with the Ritter people about coming to the table to bargain with us, whereas in the past they may have been a little reluctant.”

Wenner said he wants to persuade Leona Valley residents that “we’re not a bunch of ogres that are going to go in and destroy your lives. Whenever a project of this size gets announced, there is always an evolutionary process. . . .

“We’ve been real sensitive to the people in Leona Valley. Since we are such a large land mass, we’re able to appropriately reduce density going west, and as we head west, the density and lot sizes decrease,” he said, referring to the move toward the community of Leona Valley.

Some Leona Valley residents remain skeptical, and some are cautiously optimistic.

Betty Bailey, 70, said: “They’re not being totally honest with us. They tell us we’re not going to be able to see most of the development from the road. But I live on the side of a hill and can see all the way down to Wrightwood. Don’t tell me it’s not going to have an impact.”

On the other hand, Bob Mallicoat, 67, who owns the 315-acre Pitchfork Ranch just west of Leona Valley, said, “We hope to be able to come to a middle ground. I keep hopes high. I’m a positive thinker.”