First General Plan OKd Despite Protests

After months of deliberation on the city’s first General Plan, the City Council unanimously approved the document Tuesday despite protests from residents who said it did not adequately protect Tonner Canyon.

In adopting the final plan, the guideline to the city’s future development, the City Council combined some of the residents’ suggestions for preservation of the canyon with the Planning Commission’s more development-oriented recommendations. The canyon is one of the last large undeveloped areas in Los Angeles County.

Over the past year, a resident advisory committee had recommended zoning limits of one unit per 2.5 acres for a small portion of Tonner Canyon within the city. The committee also said that commercial development should be excluded and called for the city to endorse preserving the larger portion of the canyon that falls outside the city boundaries in unincorporated Los Angeles County, based on the theory that it is within the city’s “sphere of influence.”

The committee rejected the option of a road through this region, saying it would destroy the canyon’s sensitive ecology and eventually be used to capacity by commuters.

In contrast, the Planning Commission said the plan should allow a looser standard of one unit per acre throughout Tonner Canyon, with the possibility of both commercial and residential development. Commission members said they did not want to assert authority to limit rights of landowners outside the city. They left open the possibility of a road or other means of transportation through the canyon to relieve the city’s serious traffic congestion.

The council’s compromise identifies the canyon as a transportation corridor and specifies one unit per acre for the portion of Tonner Canyon within city boundaries. Councilman Gary Werner tried to restore the resident committee’s standard of one unit per 2.5 acres Tuesday, but was defeated by the council 3 to 2.

The plan endorses the preservation of the unincorporated portion of Tonner Canyon, using the same zoning as Los Angeles County, which designates it agricultural, recreational and open space.

Several residents complained that they received only a few days to review the council’s final alterations to the plan.

Council members responded that the public had been given ample opportunity to review the plan through numerous public hearings and that the city will incur penalties if it misses the state’s Aug. 5 deadline. Also, they said, the plan can be amended four times per year.