Panel Orders Ecological Area Project Scaled Back : Environment: County planners tell a developer to reduce the number of houses and golf-course holes proposed for sensitive Santa Clarita land.

Two weeks after Los Angeles County strengthened policies to protect environmentally sensitive lands, a county panel Thursday ordered a Santa Clarita developer to redesign a golf course and housing tract planned for a scenic oak savannah.

The order by the Planning Commission is the latest indication of the county’s renewed commitment to preserving Significant Ecological Areas--or SEAs--identified 11 years ago by planners as home to important examples of Southern California plants and wildlife.

“I really cannot support building in a SEA unless there is some overriding public benefit,” Planning Commissioner Rene Santiago said. “Some of the benefits the developer has proposed are questionable.”

Newhall Land & Farming Co. had proposed building an 18-hole golf course and 1,872 houses and condominiums on 798 acres west of the Golden State Freeway. The development would encroach on 300 acres of an SEA, where nine holes of the golf course and about 350 houses are planned.

The developer maintains that the project, known as Westridge, should be approved because the land has already been degraded by a longtime cattle grazing operation. But biologists who advise the county urged rejection of the development, saying overgrazing is no reason to destroy the SEA altogether.

The commission also expressed strong reservations Thursday about the removal of 230 trees in the SEA, dubbed the Valley Oaks Savannah because it contains more than 1,000 oak trees on rolling grassland. It ordered Newhall Land to return Sept. 26 with a revised plan that would reduce the number of housing units and golf course holes in the SEA.

Newhall Land proposed grading about 1 million cubic feet of earth inside the SEA. Also, The Old Road would be extended through the SEA from Valencia Boulevard to McBean Parkway.

“I would like the project to fit the site instead of leveling it off and making it a prairie,” Planning Commissioner J. Paul Robinson said. “The density is way out of proportion in this project.”

The new plan would be reviewed by the same advisory panel of biologists that previously advised the commission not to approve the development.

Earlier this month, the Board of Supervisors increased scrutiny of applications to build in 29 SEAs. It will hire a county biologist to analyze all projects proposed for the zones, require an earlier survey of the land’s biological resources and mandate a review by the county Planning Commission of any project exempted from full environmental studies.

Although most of the changes were enacted too late to affect the Westridge project and about 44 other cases already pending with the county, the Planning Commission on Thursday underscored its intent to protect ecologically sensitive habitats.

“This project reminds me of Iraq swallowing up Kuwait,” Planning Commissioner Richard Wulliger said. “If we don’t protect this SEA, we may as well forget it.”

Santa Clarita and the Newhall School District announced their opposition to the project earlier this year, citing concerns about traffic and school overcrowding that could result if up to 7,000 residents moved into Westridge. The developer plans to donate a seven-acre site for an elementary school, but the district does not have the funds to build a new school, Supt. Michael McGrath said.

Gloria Glenn, vice president of planning for Newhall Land, said the developer anticipated some of the commission’s concerns and is already working on a revised plan.

The company hired a bus to transport about 20 Santa Clarita residents, who testified in support of the project, and submitted about 1,400 postcards from additional supporters. Jules Diamond, a retired liquor company executive who rode on the Newhall bus, said the public golf course included in the project would benefit the community.

But commissioners expressed concern that Newhall Land would eventually sell the golf course to a private operator, as it did about 20 years after building the Valencia Golf Course.

But Glenn said the company would not sell the golf course until another public one was built in the area.