Developer Scales Back Plan for Ecological Area : Santa Clarita: An earlier proposal for a housing tract and golf course was rejected.

A Santa Clarita developer Thursday presented new plans for a huge housing tract and golf course, drawing mixed reactions from county officials who ordered the redesign to protect an environmentally sensitive oak savanna.

The Newhall Land & Farming Co. had proposed building an 18-hole golf course and 1,872 houses and condominiums on about 800 acres west of the Golden State Freeway. The project, known as Westridge, would encroach on 300 acres identified 11 years ago as one of Los Angeles County’s Significant Ecological Areas, or SEAs.

Newhall Land’s original plans called for removing 339 oak trees to make way for nine holes of the golf course and 336 housing units in the SEA, dubbed the Valley Oaks Savannah because it contains 1,183 oak trees on rolling grassland.

In June, the Los Angeles County Regional Commission expressed concern about the removal of the oaks in the SEA and ordered the firm to reduce the number of housing units there.

Under the new plans, 202 housing units would be built in the SEA--134 fewer than originally planned--and 159 trees would be removed--180 below the initial proposal.

Although nine holes of the golf course would remain in the SEA, the course has been redesigned so that only half a million cubic yards of dirt would have to be removed--half as much as in the earlier plan.

“They’ve made some great changes,” said Commissioner J. Paul Robinson, who objected in June to the earlier plan, saying extensive grading would have turned the area from rolling grassland into an even flatter “prairie.”

The commission heard testimony Thursday from supporters and opponents of the project and continued the public hearing until Nov. 13.

Earlier this month, the new plans were rejected by an advisory panel of biologists that had previously advised the commission not to approve the development. The panel rejected the project Sept. 9 because it still encroaches on the SEA, said Don Culbertson, a county planner in charge of the zone change division.

On Thursday, commissioners Richard Wulliger and Rene Santiago, who expressed reservations in June, were still not satisfied with the project. “It’s better than it was before, but I still am concerned about the removal of the oak trees, for one thing,” Wulliger said.

The city of Santa Clarita and members of the Santa Clarita Valley Oak Conservancy testified against the project. Several Santa Clarita Valley homeowners testified in favor of it, including a representative of 600 families who live in the Stevenson Ranch housing tract, which is located just south of Newhall Land’s property.