Missing SEA for Oak Trees

The County Board of Supervisors has approved the controversial Westridge Project near Santa Clarita. Debate over the project has been reduced to a choice between jobs and oak trees. This is wrong on both counts.

The approval hearing concerned whether the Westridge plan would be accepted as submitted. At issue was a request to deviate from the County General Plan in order to build about 222 of 1,939 housing units and part of a golf course in a “Significant Ecological Area” or SEA. Whether the Westridge project would be built was not at issue.

Thus, the debate concerned 11% of the housing units in Westridge. If the economic data propounded by the developer are correct, the impact is 150 jobs per year and $11 million annually, less than half a percent of the personal income of the Santa Clarita Valley.

Although this effect is small, the analysis is incomplete. Lost Westridge units would likely be offset, at least partially, in other local projects. Santa Clarita is a small open economy. Santa Clarita is like a cork bobbing in a lake. The local employment rate will not be appreciably affected.

Most likely, the overall economic benefit associated with building in the SEA is paltry.

Second, the debate is peripheral to oak trees. An ecological area is composed of more than trees. The precedent set by Westridge may prove a serious blow to all of the SEAs. It is important to take the broad perspective, and not to miss the SEA for the oak trees.

I know of no attempt to impartially evaluate the costs and benefits of building in this SEA. The emotional propaganda of partisans contains no such analysis. Our decision makers do not require it, and if they did, they would be unlikely to have the expertise or the incentive to evaluate and use the results.

JOHN DALY

North Hills