Council Rejects Home-Building Plan in Canyon; Residents Rejoice : Development: The council considers environmental factors before turning down the 54-house plan. Stunned builders may yet revise plans.

The City Council stunned and delighted most residents who packed City Hall Tuesday by unanimously rejecting a plan to build luxury homes in Worsham Canyon, one of the city’s last and largest wilderness areas.

The decision was a victory for historic preservation and environmental groups as well as most residents who live near the canyon. All came out against the plan, saying the new development would burden city schools, roads and services. Most of all they saw Worsham Canyon as the front line in a war to preserve what’s left of the region’s unspoiled hillsides.

The vote was a monumental setback to Nottingham Ltd. of West Covina and its Arroyo Vista project. Company executives had anticipated council approval after they altered their plans for the 18-acre tract several times to appease local residents.

The decision came as a surprise because only two of five council members had announced their opposition to Arroyo Vista. Slow-growth advocates Helen McKenna-Rahder and Bob Henderson were prepared for an Alamo-like last stand against the project when Councilman Robert F. Woehrmann preempted them. Woehrmann read from prepared remarks before a near-capacity crowd of 100.

“Property owners, including developers, are entitled to use their property in accordance with the land-use laws of the community,” he said, but the builder had not addressed the city’s legitimate concerns.

The 54-home plan was too dense for the area, Woehrmann said, and the developer had not solved the problem of protecting the proposed houses from potential flood damage.

City staff had recommended that the builder or the city construct a flood-damage control basin above the development. But the developer did not own the land where such a debris basin would have to be built. Most of the upper canyon remains oil company land. Oil companies have owned and drilled for crude oil in the Whittier Hills for generations.

Woehrmann said the city should not subsidize the project in any way, including helping the developer obtain the land for flood control.

Henderson said that developing the canyon would deprive the community of needed open space and a rare natural creek bed. “Its loss (would be) a great loss to the community,” he said. In addition, the proposed development was dangerously close to the city-owned landfill to the east, creating liability concerns for the city, he said.

Other council members echoed those sentiments, and noted that the Whittier City School District had also gone on record against the development as proposed. District officials said developer fees would not be enough to cover the cost of educating the additional students that the new homes would bring. The district could not persuade the developer to contribute more.

First, the council rejected the environmental impact report for the project as inadequate. Then the council members rejected a zone change the developer needed and finally turned down the development itself.

When the voting was over, the council chamber erupted in applause. Reaction from the Nottingham team ranged from anger to resignation. One company executive stormed out of City Hall and shouted that he would have police arrest a reporter who tried to ask him a question.

Project manager Jon Webb said his company had invested more than three years and millions of dollars in Arroyo Vista and had made every effort to be a good neighbor, but that the public too often perceived developers as bad guys. It was too early to say what Nottingham’s next step would be, he said.

Nottingham has redesigned the project twice, reducing the number of homes from 73 to 58 to 54. The company dropped its plan to make the proposed neighborhood a gated community and pledged to preserve the hillsides as open space.

The developer may choose to pay for a revised environmental impact report, redesign the project and bring it before the city again.

Woehrmann, a staunch defender of property-owners’ rights, did not rule out future development. Because of flaws in the Nottingham plan, however, “you almost had to take a sword to the whole thing,” he said.

Woehrmann said he could support a better development plan, because the canyon is not in an entirely natural state anyway. There are a few homes cut into the center of the canyon. And Whittier College planted trees in the canyon and filled in land near the canyon mouth for use as athletic fields.

With the recent rains, the hillsides are carpeted with orange poppies and yellow mustard flowers. Ancient oaks and pepper trees flank the creek bed, and hillside sage bushes have new growth.

“Worsham is the entrance to a natural environmental area,” said Charles Hanson, a board member of the Friends of the Whittier Hills Assn. “It’s a major waterway in periods of rain. There’s a lot of natural beauty there. It has easy access to hikers and walkers. And right now, it’s gorgeous. We think it should be left as much as possible in a natural state.”

His organization wants to turn Worsham and other undeveloped hillside land into a 3,200-acre wilderness park, but even supporters concede that the city doesn’t have the money to buy the land from the oil companies and potential developers.

As a result, the battle over the hills will be fought on a piece-by-piece basis, and the debate over Worsham Canyon will almost certainly be replayed. Residents say they are ready for the struggle. “If this project goes through and they are allowed to build,” resident Vaunceil Matson said, “the whole area will be built up. It will set a precedent.”