New Plans for Housing, Golf Course Submitted : Santa Clarita Valley: County planners again delay a decision. Officials want more time want to ensure that an oak savanna area is protected.

The largest developer in the Santa Clarita Valley presented revised plans Thursday for a huge housing tract and golf course, but county officials who ordered the redesign to protect an environmentally sensitive oak savanna once again postponed a decision on the project.

The county Regional Planning Commission said it needed until Feb. 12 to decide whether to approve plans by Newhall Land & Farming Co. to build an 18-hole golf course and 1,868 housing units on 800 acres west of the Golden State Freeway, a few miles south of Magic Mountain.

The Westridge project would be built on portions of 310 acres identified 12 years ago as one of the county’s Significant Ecological Areas--or SEAs. The area, dubbed the Valley Oaks Savanna, was chosen because it contains 1,183 oak trees on rolling grassland.

The County Board of Supervisors voted in June to beef up the review of projects proposed in the ecological zones but did not ban development in such areas.

Since then, planning commissioners have taken a tough stance on the Westridge project, twice ordering the company to redesign the project to protect the SEA.

Newhall Land’s original plans called for construction of 336 housing units in the SEA and removal of 339 oak trees to make way for nine holes of the golf course. Under orders from the commission, the company presented new plans in September that called for only 200 housing units in the SEA and the removal of 159 trees.

Under the plans presented to the commission Thursday, 137 oak trees would be removed from the SEA--22 fewer than proposed in September--and 189 housing units would be built in it--11 fewer than proposed earlier.

Gloria Glenn, vice president of planning for Newhall Land, also said the company would guarantee that the golf course would remain open to the public for at least 10 years after being built and that public hiking trails would be built in undeveloped portions of the SEA.

Commissioner Richard Wulliger, Supervisor Ed Edelman’s appointee, called the changes in the latest plan “insignificant” and urged the commission to deny approval. He and Supervisor Gloria Molina’s appointee Rene Santiago voted to deny the Westridge project, echoing the concerns of a county advisory panel of biologists, whose members said the project would harm the SEA.

But Wulliger’s motion failed to win the support of the other three commissioners. Commissioner Pat Russell, Supervisor Mike Antonovich’s appointee, said a public golf course is needed in the valley and appeared to be leaning toward approval of the project. The other two commissioners said they were undecided.

The panel then voted unanimously to postpone its decision.