Topanga Development
* It was with outrage that we read Alexander Cockburn’s Column Left, “Speculation vs. Democracy in Topanga” (Feb. 3). As longtime Topanga residents who have a history of community involvement, we feel compelled to address the blatant inaccuracies in Cockburn’s article regarding Topanga and Canyon Oaks, the proposed residential and recreational project that was approved by the L.A. County Regional Planning Commission and awaits approval by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors on Feb. 10. We support the decision of the planning commission, which found that Canyon Oaks does conform to the L.A. County General Plan and the Santa Monica Mountains Area Plan.
Contrary to Cockburn’s column, Topanga Canyon is not the folksy rural community of “largely moderate income,” nor are most of its residents the “unpretentious environmentalists” Cockburn would have you believe. According to the 1990 Census, the average family income in Topanga is $100,000. The average home price is more than $437,000 and 99% of the population is Caucasian--numbers that add up to an “elitist” population.
On the subject of water, Cockburn claims that the proposed golf course will require several times the daily water use of the community. To the contrary, golf courses, on the average, use less water per square foot than a residential subdivision of the same size.
More importantly, if Canyon Oaks is approved, never again will water be cut off in Topanga by the natural disasters the canyon has suffered recently, such as last year’s fires and the January earthquake which ruptured Topanga’s sole water pipeline. Canyon Oaks will provide a vital secondary water source. It will store, not use, 1.6 million gallons of water each day.
As residents who live closer to and will be more affected by the project than those who claim opposition, we support Canyon Oaks as proposed. Our group, the Friends of Canyon Oaks, includes more than 200 people who live in the immediate area, as well as another 200 who live within a five-mile radius of the property.
PAUL COOK, WILLIAM DILLON
Topanga
* Thanks to Cockburn for his commentary on Topanga’s long battle against the powers of greed and insensitivity. After years of preliminary hearings and endless delays, the developer’s project was denied in 1991. Within two weeks the denial was reversed.
The Topanga Canyon Town Council and we, at the Topanga Assn. for a Scenic Community (TASC), initiated a meeting with the new owners to help create a plan that would be far less destructive. The golf course resulting from the grading of more than 3.5 million cubic yards of Santa Monica Mountain tops at the headwaters of Topanga Creek remains the most environmentally egregious aspect of the plan. In 1992, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy offered $10 million to buy the land. Fair market value, alas, was not enough for the developer. Instead, the developer launched an expensive public relations campaign to discredit the community opposition; to offer handouts (called community benefits) intended to compensate for bulldozing 80% of the mountainous landscape, and to woo state decision-makers to reject the notion that the land be declared a worthy candidate for parkland acquisition.
Each year, over 10,000 schoolchildren visit Topanga State Park and the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum (for Youth Drama Days). This should represent Topanga Canyon, not a gated enclave with annual golf club fees of $55,000.
SUSAN PETRULAS NISSMAN, Chair
for the TASC Board of Directors