A Rocky Trail : Development Is Crowding In on Bellflower’s Horse Country

It is a muggy Friday afternoon in Bellflower, and the drone of traffic from busy Alondra Boulevard and Woodruff Avenue can be heard faintly as Abby Littrell makes her way through her back yard to the place she calls her “little bit of country.”

Past her garden--ripe with cabbage, corn, lettuce and green beans--several horses stomp impatiently in their stalls, flicking tails at flies drawn by the warm weather and their sweaty coats. Beyond them is a fading red barn, a spacious riding arena, the San Gabriel River and, off in the distance, the San Gabriel River Freeway.

This is a place that residents call “Horse Country”--where horses once outnumbered cars and farm animals roamed freely. But over the years the spacious lots that made this 11-block area unique have been peppered with rental cottages, and swank homes with swimming pools and lush gardens.

Now, a developer’s plans to subdivide about four acres for 13 luxury homes has pitted neighbor against neighbor over what some see as the last bit of country that remains in the city.

“We are going through a transition and find ourselves facing different views of the future,” said Richard Downing, 44, a lifelong resident of Bellflower who lives in a tract next to Horse Country and has been leading the fight against the subdivision.

Critics say that the development, approved for Midway Street and Chicago Avenue, may lead to the destruction of the only remnants of Bellflower’s rural roots as more large-scale development moves into the area. In fact, the same developers have their eye on the land that Littrell rents as a site for a second subdivision. Critics say that if developers are allowed to continue subdividing land, the wide-open spaces that make the area a perfect place for farm animals will be lost.

Supporters of the development call critics anti-growth and say they just yearn for days that are gone forever--days when city leaders boasted in brochures of “a country life with city advantages” in Bellflower. They say that subdivisions of luxury homes like the one in Horse Country will encourage home ownership, improve property values and keep the neighborhood from sliding into neglect. If more homeowners and nicer homes mean less open space and less room for horses, then so be it, they say.

“If the horses disappear, isn’t that a majority of people making a statement?” asked Melissa Mosley, an 11-year Horse Country resident, who owns several horses herself but supports the subdivision. “Shouldn’t the area be allowed to change if that’s what people want?”

But Bonnie Benjamin, a 19-year resident of the neighborhood who keeps horses on her acre of land and opposes the subdivision, said the struggle is “about having elbow room . . . having a garden or just walking around the property without bumping into a fence or a neighbor.”

This is not the first time that residents of Horse Country have faced a battle over the area’s future. In 1984, residents filed a lawsuit to block a condominium project on Chicago Avenue. The lawsuit was settled out of court, plans for condominiums were scratched and city leaders agreed to lower density requirements in the area.

At the time, city leaders wrote a new ordinance establishing the area as an “agricultural estates” district, a place “intended to provide, insofar as possible, an area for more rural residential development . . . to maintain and encourage the keeping of horses.”

However, while the intent of the ordinance called for a more rural area, the text of the ordinance allows property owners to build up to four rental cottages per lot. This apparent contradiction between the intent of the ordinance and what it actually allowed has caused most of the conflict.

Some residents say that the City Council ignored the ordinance this summer when it approved the subdivision plan by Bellflower businessman Lester (Skip) Taylor and his partner, Clyde Wilson. Yet, the plan meets all the density requirements in the law.

The Taylor-Wilson project will be built on four parcels occupied by four old rental homes, a trailer and horse corrals. Midway Street will be extended, and 13 lots will be created around the extension for custom-built homes. The subdivision will be the first major development that cuts into the greenbelt area between Chicago Avenue and the river and will be the first project to subdivide parcels too small for homeowners to keep horses on their property. Only three of the lots will have the minimum 10,000 square feet of space needed to keep horses.

Critics argue that although the Taylor-Wilson project meets city density requirements, buying adjoining parcels and subdividing them violates the spirit of the law.

“The project complies with the written word of the law, but not the intent,” Downing said. “We don’t want to see large lots cut up into small pieces. We want to keep the openness of the area. A project like this could open the floodgates for more subdivisions.”

City planning director Bruce Leach said the project has more open space than Taylor and Wilson were required to provide under the law. He said that although the subdivision will break up large pieces of land into smaller pieces, the amount of open space will remain the same.

Leach also noted that the number of horse owners has declined over the years. City officials say that today, only a fraction of the property owners in the area keep the animals there.

One of those is Larry Lee, who with his wife, Muriel, moved to the neighborhood 28 years ago.

“Back then,” he said, “everyone had horses, cows, chickens, geese. The lots were wide open and people used to ride from property to property. Now everyone put up walls. We’re getting squeezed little by little.

“People who function in a city don’t really have horses. . . . They don’t really care,” he added. “I think the horse owners are doomed.”

City leaders say they would like to see Horse Country become an exclusive residential area of the city without sacrificing rural living.

“I don’t see anything wrong in trying to preserve that area for horses, or chickens or whatever to the extent that it is possible,” Councilman Randy Bomgaars said. But, he added: “I don’t know how to do that realistically.”

Other council members said they find themselves in the same predicament: wanting to keep the open space of the area, yet unwilling to dictate how a property owner can use his land.

“I can’t tell a guy, ‘Hey, don’t develop your property, ‘cause I like the view,’ ” Councilman John Ansdell said.

But the uproar has prompted city leaders to pass a 10-month moratorium on construction in the agricultural estates district. The Taylor-Wilson project will proceed because it was approved before the moratorium was passed.

The city plans to hold a series of hearings on the neighborhood’s future. The first is tentatively scheduled next Tuesday at Carruthers Park. City officials also will send out questionnaires to Horse Country residents asking them if they want the density requirements tightened further.

For his part, Taylor, a Horse Country resident, acknowledges neighborhood concern over the changing character of the area. He said a second subdivision for the area, still in the planning stages, would be scrubbed if it became clear that most residents opposed it.

But he added: “Change and transition are going to happen no matter what I do. People say, ‘Oh, we want things to stay the same.’ Well, things never stay the same. They either get better or worse.”