County Orders Halt to Clearing of Land

County officials ordered a halt to the clearing of a controversial South County property Monday after being formally served with a court ruling overturning approval of the 2,500-home Las Flores development.

However, environmentalists who sued to overturn county approval of the development charged that the county’s action came too late--the land has already been cleared of its sensitive vegetation.

“This was a victory for us, but the horse has already been let out of the barn,” said Pete DeSimone, manager of Starr Ranch, a National Audubon Society sanctuary.

In January, the local Audubon chapter sued the county and the developer, the Santa Margarita Co., contending that the plan for Las Flores did not adequately address environmental impacts.

Superior Court Judge Leonard Goldstein announced last Thursday that he was ruling in favor of the environmentalists. But because his written order was not served on the county until Monday, both sides were interpreting the ruling differently.

While environmentalists wanted the company to stop work, Santa Margarita Co. officials contended that Goldstein’s ruling did not entirely void the development’s environmental impact report, so they continued clearing the land.

Once county Planning Director Thomas B. Mathews received the judge’s formal order, however, he announced that it “requires suspension of all activity that could result in any change or alteration to the physical environment. . . . Therefore, we have issued a ‘stop work order’ directing the immediate cessation of all grading/clearing activity” on the property.

“I’m quite angry,” DeSimone said. County officials “knew this was going to happen. It would have been in the best interest of the public to shut (work) down completely. For them to know it was coming down the pike and to allow the developer to keep on clearing is just unbelievable.”

Mathews defended the county’s action in not cutting off the developer’s clearing permit, even though county attorneys were aware that a ruling from Goldstein was due any day.

“We had a property owner that was very, very anxious, and we didn’t see a need to delay them,” Mathews said. “You’re making it sound like there was some plan here to rough up (the environmentalists). That’s not the case.”

A spokesman for the developer declined to comment.