Supervisors to Hold Final Ahmanson Plan Hearing : Development: The board will consider public testimony, the threat of lawsuits and a new report opposing the project.

Six years after it was first proposed, a revamped $1-billion Ahmanson Ranch housing project will be debated today at the final full-scale hearing before the Ventura County Board of Supervisors votes on the plan.

The supervisors--sitting with the county Planning Commission--will consider not only public testimony, but also the threat of lawsuits from project opponents and a new report by county planners opposing the new mini-city.

The hearing is set for 8:30 a.m. in the supervisors’ hearing room at the County Government Center in Ventura, and it could run all day, officials said.

The supervisors’ final vote is scheduled Tuesday, although the public will only be allowed to discuss new information at that time.

For months, the Ahmanson Land Co. plan has split critics and supporters along county lines. Residents of Ventura County have generally favored the 3,050-dwelling golf course community south of Simi Valley, while Los Angeles County residents have opposed it.

And Ventura County supervisors--a majority of whom say they favor the project in concept--said they anticipate a legal challenge if they finally approve it.

“The board is going to have to make a decision based on the fact that whatever we do might end up in court,” Supervisor Maria VanderKolk said Wednesday.

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joy Picus has threatened legal action to block the development because a main road into it runs through her district. And the Calabasas City Council has set a special closed session Saturday morning to ponder its legal options.

“A lawsuit is not a happy thought,” Calabasas Councilwoman Lesley Devine said. “The idea of taxpayers from a small city and taxpayers from Ventura County spending all these dollars on attorneys is crazy. We would rather spend the money on playground equipment.”

But Calabasas is in no position to back down, Devine said. “We can’t,” she said. “Our citizens do not want us to.”

Representatives of Los Angeles County and the cities of Calabasas, Malibu and Los Angeles have expressed strong concerns that their jurisdictions will bear the brunt of the project’s traffic and smog.

And a report released last week by Ventura County’s own staff planners seemed to reinforce Los Angeles County’s position.

Although crediting Ahmanson with “extraordinary efforts to minimize impacts,” the planners said the project should be rejected because it would irreparably damage the rural environment of the Simi Hills and set a precedent for development of open space in Ventura County.

The project would transform 2,800 acres into an upscale mini-city with a 300-room hotel, two professional-quality golf courses, and a town center of dozens of shops and government buildings.

The new 8,600-resident community would eventually dump 37,540 cars a day onto nearby roadways, help extend the blanket of smog that frequently covers the nearby San Fernando Valley, and destroy mature oak trees and rare grasslands on the sprawling sheep ranch, the planners said.

Between 40 million and 45 million cubic yards would be graded to flatten the rolling terrain over the next 14 years, the planners said.

In all, the planners found that the project would have unavoidable significant impacts in 14 environmental areas.

The project’s approval could also erode Ventura County’s ability to enforce growth-control policies that generally force construction of new communities within cities or next to them, the planners said.

Approval of Ahmanson would set such a precedent unless county officials “can find that this proposal is unique and unlikely to be replicated in other unincorporated areas,” the report said.

That is exactly what VanderKolk said she is prepared to find because the Ahmanson project offers a one-of-a-kind chance to convert thousands of acres of private parklands into public ownership.

It was VanderKolk who suggested last year that Ahmanson and the developers of comedian Bob Hope’s nearby Jordan Ranch consolidate their proposals at a single location.

As part of the deal, nearly 10,000 acres of mountain land would become public. Hope would be paid $29.5 million for his share of the land.

A year ago, the supervisors put the joint project on a fast track so that they could make a quick decision and retain multimillion-dollar state and federal park commitments to the deal.

But the Ahmanson project would also mean that 1,900 acres of open space would be lost to the new city, planners said.

“We are going to lose some open space, but are we ever going to have the opportunity again to preserve this much open space for good?” VanderKolk said. “The deal is not good enough for some people, but my perspective is that this is better than I thought possible.”

Supervisors John K. Flynn and Maggie Kildee also said they see the 10,000 acres of open space as the principal reason to consider approving the project.

But Flynn said a new financial analysis that shows the project would funnel between $35 million and $85 million into the county’s general fund over the next 30 years also gets his attention.

In such difficult financial times, the county can no longer ignore the benefits of upscale developments, he said.

“We carry the responsibility for social programs, and the money is not keeping up with those demands,” he said.