SANTA CLARA RIVER : Newhall Plans Spur Ecological Concerns

A new community with more than 20,000 residences and businesses on farmland just east of the Ventura County line could begin to develop before the end of the century under a plan by Newhall Land & Farming Co.

The proposal, submitted for approval to Los Angeles County, calls for development to occur over 25 years beginning about 1998.

The 19-square-mile community west of Magic Mountain would extend to the Ventura County line and include 22,330 residences.

Newhall Ranch, as the new community would be known, would include five residential villages with shopping centers, several schools, parks, an extensive trail system and more than 5,400 acres of open space.

The plans also include a 200-acre business park, several commercial retail centers and a 215-acre golf course.

“We are committed to creating a social community that provides the human services and an environmental setting for an enjoyable place to raise a family, live and work,” Newhall Land official Jim Harter said.

But area wildlife officials fear that Newhall Ranch could encroach upon significant ecological areas, including the Santa Clara River.

“I’m concerned that their plans . . . could destroy a lot of what is valuable about the river,” said Cat Brown, a biologist with the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“I haven’t seen the whole development proposal, but I have seen their permit request,” she said. “They’ve definitely done a lot of good planning and have acknowledged the river’s value (but) my feeling is they haven’t done enough yet.”

Brown said one of the main concerns that Fish and Wildlife officials would have is the impact on the unarmored three-spined stickleback, an endangered fish that lives in the river.

Brown said the project’s plans call for using boulders and other materials to make the river’s banks harder and stronger, which in turn could threaten both the stickleback and the least Bell’s vireo, an endangered songbird that nests in the brush near the river.

“It depends on the configuration of their project, but if they intend to harden the banks of the river, that will squeeze the vireo out entirely,” Brown said.