County Approves Big Water System Despite Lack of Housing OK : Antelope Valley: The project is intended to serve 7,200 houses, but no construction permit has been issued.

Los Angeles County supervisors approved a massive water system for the southwest Antelope Valley on Tuesday, even though no permit has been issued authorizing construction of the 7,200-house development the system is primarily designed to serve.

The $13.6-million water system would be paid for by Ritter Park Associates, a partnership that wants to build a mini-city on the 11,500-acre Ritter Ranch, complete with a school, shopping centers and an amphitheater.

It’s expected that the area will be annexed later this year by Palmdale, which would then deal with whether the project should be built.

Under the contract approved by the county, some of the water system’s costs could be paid by other developers and by future home buyers in the area through a tax assessment district.

Only Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who represents the Antelope Valley, abstained from the vote, saying he remained concerned about the proposed development’s scope and community opposition to the project.

“I have mixed feelings,” he said. “While I can’t support the development, I don’t want to hold up the needed water system improvements.”

Residents of nearby Leona Valley, where part of the Ritter Park project would be situated, have long opposed the water system because they say it indicates tacit approval of the project, which they also oppose.

They and other neighbors of the proposed project also have expressed fears that the water system will bring even more development to the area and drain their already inadequate wells.

Even the city of Palmdale, which supports the development plans, previously disagreed with the county’s decision not to require an environmental impact study of the water system.

In a January, 1991, letter, former City Planning Director Clyde E. Evans wrote that the system alone would “serve as a significant inducement to growth in the southwestern portion of the Antelope Valley and Leona Valley” and therefore environmental mitigations should have been required.

County officials acknowledged that the water system will open the southwestern portion of the valley to additional development, but they said mitigation of the effects of development should be considered during review of the developments, not of the water system.

They also said the system will draw its water from the California Aqueduct and would activate its wells to tap the Antelope Valley’s ground-water supplies only in emergencies.

Even though construction of the water system is not contingent on approval of the development, a county water official said no developer would spend money to build such a system without a building permit in hand.

“If there’s nothing to provide water to, there’s no reason to build it,” said Gary Hartley, assistant deputy director of the county Department of Public Works.

In the context of the county review process, the water system approval seems premature because the Ritter Park development has not even cleared the Regional Planning Commission hurdle yet, neighbors said.

The city of Palmdale, however, has applied to annex the territory and appears poised to approve the development if that annexation occurs. The countywide commission that must approve annexations--the Local Agency Formation Commission--last year allowed Palmdale to include the territory in its sphere of influence, a legal precursor to annexation.

Hartley said LAFCO and Palmdale made it a condition of the annexation that the county first approve construction of the water system.