Critics of Ritter Ranch Project Win 1st Round

Leona Valley homeowners won the first round on Thursday of a years-long fight to control development in their remote rural area of the Antelope Valley.

The Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission approved a community standards district for the valley, which is intended to preserve its country atmosphere by requiring that most future houses be built on two-acre lots and limiting such urban touches as curbs and cinder-block walls.

The Leona Valley homeowners hope to use such a district as a tool in their larger struggle to block a developer’s plans to build part of a giant housing project in their verdant valley. Ritter Ranch Associates has proposed a mini-city of more than 5,000 houses, about a third of which would be built in Leona Valley.

The entire development is seeking annexation to the city of Palmdale, which is poised to approve it.

After the Planning Commission’s decision Thursday, which now faces a vote by the County Board of Supervisors, the homeowners said they hope that creating the district will help them persuade the countywide board that rules on boundary changes--the Local Agency Formation Commission--to exclude their valley from the annexation.

If the Leona Valley portion of Ritter Ranch remains unincorporated, it would have to comply with the more stringent standards of the community standards district.

“We feel that finally we’ve reached the point where the people of Leona Valley have been heard,” said Bob Mallicoat, spokesman for the Leona Valley Town Council.

Leona Valley is separated from two-thirds of the Ritter Ranch property by hills, which some residents say divide the areas into two distinct communities. The hills help justify their request to form a community standards district, they say.

Ritter Ranch representatives, however, counter that the hills are minor and that Ritter Ranch should be considered a single entity.

During Thursday’s Planning Commission hearing, Ritter Ranch spokesman Peter Wenner asked that the company’s property be excluded from the community standards district.

He also said repeatedly that establishing the rural community standards on the Leona Valley portion of the proposed project would “not be in the best interest of the environment” because it would mean spreading houses out over areas the developer intends to preserve as open space.

“It creates a situation where there is no incentive for a developer like us to dedicate open space,” he said.

Mallicoat later said the area proposed for open space dedication is mostly too steep or too wet for building anyway, so it should not be viewed as a gift from a generous developer.

Not all Leona Valley residents were happy with the decision. Gloria Bryant O’Brien, president of the valley’s property owners’ association, said she has lived in the area since 1955 and thinks the existing county laws are adequate. Ritter Ranch, she added, will help the community.

“Ritter Ranch would be such a benefit. There’s no way the people of Leona Valley could afford a library without them, for instance,” she said.