Ventura County Supervisors Give Ahmanson Project 3-Year Extension : Development: OK comes despite threats of added lawsuits by city of Calabasas and other opponents.

Ignoring threats of lawsuits, Ventura County supervisors Tuesday granted Ahmanson Land Co. three more years to turn 10,000 acres into public parkland as part of its deal to build a mini-city in the Simi Hills.

The board’s decision was immediately criticized by Calabasas city officials, who vowed to sue the county over the extension.

“It gives us endless opportunities for litigation,” Calabasas Councilwoman Lesley Devine said, adding that the board’s action offers “a shopping mall” of legal possibilities to hogtie the project for years.

Since 1992, Calabasas and eight other plaintiffs have stalled the massive project planned for a ranch along the Los Angeles County line, arguing that it would clog streets and freeways with traffic and increase air pollution in the San Fernando Valley.

The delays caused by those lawsuits, which are now on appeal, prompted Ahmanson to request the extension to live up to its part of the deal. Ahmanson won the first round in Ventura County Superior Court.

The original agreement called for Ahmanson to acquire entertainer Bob Hope’s Jordan Ranch, Runkle Ranch, Corral Canyon and Liberty Canyon properties by December, 1995, and sign over 10,000 acres to state and federal park agencies. So far, only two of the parcels are in the hands of parks officials, and those as a result of a complicated side deal.

If the Irwindale-based developer fails to deliver all of the parkland, the county would automatically remove its permit to build 3,050 dwellings, a town center, two golf courses and a 300-room hotel.

Supervisor Maria VanderKolk, architect of the original deal, stressed that the three-year extension does not alter the agreement in any significant way. “Without all of this open space,” she said, “there is no project.”

The resolution, adopted 4 to 1 Tuesday, restates the supervisors’ position that Ahmanson would have to start over and conduct another lengthy environmental review should it renege on its promise.

The decision also overturned a Planning Commission rejection last month. Commissioners said Ahmanson knew lawsuits were inevitable when it agreed to the original 1995 deadline. But Assistant County Counsel Andrew Gustafson said Tuesday that developers did not “expect the tenacity and ingenuity of (opponents’) litigation.”

Supervisor Susan Lacey cast the lone dissenting vote, saying she believed that the county could protect more open space by “just saying no” to the Ahmanson development.

The board decision followed a two-hour public hearing that featured 16 speakers, most of them opposed to the project.

Two notable exceptions were a spokesman for the Sierra Club and Joseph T. Edmiston, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. They said they could support the extension provided that the supervisors held Ahmanson to its commitment for public parkland.

Edmiston’s agency could end up controlling about half of the parkland in the deal.

Calabasas city officials voiced the most vociferous objections, threatening to do whatever is needed to block Ahmanson’s proposed 8,600-resident community from swamping Calabasas with traffic.

“If the extension is granted, a new round of lawsuits may be filed,” Calabasas Mayor Karyn Foley told the supervisors. “The litigation will continue long into the foreseeable future.”

Ahmanson has not yet settled on a purchase price for the 4,700 acres of Runkle Ranch and Corral Canyon, officials said, despite Hope’s 1991 pledge to sell all four ranches for $29.5 million.

Some opponents told the supervisors that they fear that Hope will demand such a high price that Ahmanson will ultimately return to county officials saying it cannot afford the deal without government help.

Ahmanson officials declined to respond directly to concerns about purchasing Hope’s land, saying they first need to overcome court challenges.

“Although we’ve been working on the project for two years, much of the time has been spent on litigation,” said Donald Brackenbush, president of Ahmanson Land.

He said his staff has also made progress in refining the design of the project to cut in half the tons of earth needed to be moved and trees uprooted.

But he and other Ahmanson officials said they cannot proceed with the deal until lawsuits are resolved and they are sure they can build the project.

That could take some time, Foley said.

“We’re not quitters,” she said. “We’re scrappers.”