CALIFORNIA ALBUM : Rural Growing Pains : Kern County has approved a new city on 10,000 acres of pasture north of the Grapevine. Critics of San Emidio, which would sit on or near nine earthquake faults, say it will create more traffic, crime and bad air.

If California has a Mason-Dixon Line, it is here at the foot of the Tehachapi, where the sprawl of Los Angeles surrenders to the alfalfa and cotton fields of the heartland.

Grapevine, a gas and food stop, has long straddled the divide between south and north, city and farm. But the line is no longer distinct. The 1980s saw a small community of L.A. expatriates take hold here, living in Bakersfield and commuting two hours to jobs in the Southland.

Now, Kern County has taken the next audacious leap, approving a new city on 10,000 acres of pasture along Interstate 5 just north of here. It envisions 63,000 people, seven residential villages, 10 schools, a college, industry and commerce, three golf courses, two resort hotels and three fake lakes.

All this confirms some residents’ worst fears: that Los Angeles is strutting up and over the mountain into the Central Valley.

“This will be a bedroom community for Los Angeles,” said Barbara Garris, a 30-year Bakersfield resident who opposes the project. “It will bring more traffic, more bad air, more crime. And where will the water for 63,000 people come from?”

San Emidio, the name of the new town, will rise from a corner of the massive San Emidio Ranch--117,000 acres of gravel quarry, oil fields and cattle land. When Agoura Hills developer Dale Poe bought the ranch in 1989 from Tenneco West for $22 million, it was said to be the largest private land acquisition in California history.

Poe hopes to break ground by 1996. His 14-square-mile, $1-billion city could take 25 years to complete.

A more problematic development would be hard to find.

San Emidio sits on or near nine earthquake faults, including the White Wolf Fault that rocked Bakersfield in July, 1952. The water table lies 1,000 feet deep and is tainted with salts. The project would destroy a portion of feeding ground for the California condor, North America’s largest bird and the object of a $20-million public and private effort to save it from extinction. The smog ranks second-worst in the nation.

With Bakersfield 25 miles to the north, San Emidio sits in the middle of nowhere, an example, residents say, of “leapfrog growth” carried to an extreme.

Jeff Stevenson, vice president of Poe Development, argues that because earthquake fault lines crisscross much of California, the nine faults around San Emidio should not be a reason to kill the project. Ground water will be pumped and treated, he said. Electric carts and paved paths will reduce automobile traffic within town, and industrial parks and commercial centers will provide 28,000 non-commuter jobs. “We will be using futuristic planning throughout,” Stevenson said.

But opponents say the mitigation measures fall far short. To approve a new city on the promise of 28,000 jobs is to indulge in fancy, they contend. Last month, the National Audubon Society filed suit against the county to stop the project, charging that the Kern County Board of Supervisors abused its powers and ignored the impact to endangered species such as the California condor and the San Joaquin kit fox.

Critics point out that supervisors approved the environmental impact report without input from a planning commission. Kern County has no planning commission; it was disbanded a decade ago in the midst of the pro-growth fever.

“There are no checks and balances, and the county accepted a perfunctory environmental document and railroaded it through,” said Mary Griffen, president of the Kern County Audubon Society. “We had no choice but to go to court to protect the process.”

San Emidio has outlasted other challenges. In January, the Bakersfield Californian disclosed that Randall Abbott, the county’s top planning official, and Supervisor Karl Hettinger--the two men who could make or break the new town--had taken four pleasure trips with Stevenson, developer Poe’s nephew. These included a 10-day Christmas vacation to Mexico aboard Poe’s yacht, the Royal Dolphin.

Abbott and Hettinger later produced canceled checks showing substantial, if not full, payment for the trip. A county inquiry into San Emidio found no evidence of influence peddling.

However, Hettinger--the surviving Los Angeles police officer in the 1963 “Onion Field” slayings near Grapevine, who later moved to Bakersfield and won election in the supervisorial district that takes in San Emidio--apologized for using poor judgment and abstained from voting on the project. Last month he was voted out of office.

Abbott--who had been criticized by county grand juries for mixing county matters, personal friendships and private dealings--quit under fire and is now a consultant to developers.

“Through my job, I developed a lot of close friendships with builders and developers,” Abbott told The Times. “I didn’t want to be in a position where the media chose my friends.”

Ted James, county planning director, said San Emidio has gotten this far on its merits. The 10,000 acres slated for development are not considered prime farmland, he said. And the county will assess hefty developer fees to ensure that the project produces more revenue than it costs.

“This project will not happen overnight,” James said. “The developer can’t move to the next phase without mitigating the problems with the condor, water, air and transportation. Every stage has its requirements with new public hearings.”

But the county’s environmental report concedes that reducing such impacts will be next to impossible. And opponents say the reality of California growth is that new towns, however questionable, rarely get halted in midstream.

“This project should have never come this far,” said Gordon Nipp, local representative of the Sierra Club. “On water alone it should have been defeated. Or air quality. Or earthquake faults. Or the condor.”

Even as they face the prospect of San Emidio, residents are bracing for the next massive project. Tejon Ranch, the state’s largest private landowner, holds 250,000 acres here and in 1982 secured the county’s initial approval for future development. (Times Mirror Co., which publishes the Los Angeles Times, owns 30% of the shares of Tejon Ranch.)

“Don’t let anyone fool you. These are going to be commuter towns,” Nipp said. “People are going to live here and drive 80 miles to work in Los Angeles.”

Urban Sprawl?

The community of San Emidio would transform 10,000 acres of Kern County pasture and farmland into a small city. Developers envision a population of 63,000, a college, resort hotels, golf courses and industry. Critics say it will extend Los Angeles’ urban sprawl into the San Joaquin Valley.