Mountains Conservancy: Sellout or Savior?

Joe Edmiston continues his dog and pony show while the public is forced to take extraordinary measures to counteract the conservancy’s deals in order to ensure protection for parklands and wildlife in the Santa Monica Mountains.

The conservancy under Mr. Edmiston’s leadership has crafted deal after deal in which it supports exemptions to the county general plan or the coastal plan, giving developers a greatly increased number of buildings in exchange for donations of land that usually could not have been developed anyway because of the geologic constraints. Usually these high-density developments are also sited in the most environmentally sensitive part of the tract. The public has found itself fighting the very agency established to do the job.

The conservancy’s history in the upper Malibu Creek watershed tells the tale, starting with the Baldwin deal, which was so egregious that one county supervisor stated, “It is offensive to find the conservancy so deeply in bed with a developer.”

Public outrage prevented the conservancy’s “split-the-baby” deal in Palo Comado (Jordan Ranch) and a lawsuit filed by a nonprofit organization (Save Open Space) augmented by a loan from the Sierra Club stopped another one on Micor just east of Malibu Creek State Park. This one would have sacrificed the watercourse to development even though fewer than 5% of the riparian areas in the Santa Monica Mountains are left.

There are a number of lawsuits to prevent the Ahmanson Ranch deal, which the conservancy has spent almost $30 million to facilitate, although it would develop a city and golf courses with their polluting runoff adjacent to Las Virgenes Creek.

And recently the public prevented, so far , another Edmiston deal to put both Soka University and the park service together in the eastern Las Virgenes valley, a true worst-case scenario.

Similar deals go on in other parts of the mountains, notably the Anden project in Malibu in the viewshed of Charmlee Park as well as Ritter Ranch in Palmdale, a development that would not even have been approved without the conservancy’s agreement to take the open-space donation.

The conservancy is simply tallying up a short-term acreage score card. Instead of insisting that current laws be upheld and that development--and therefore land prices--be held down to currently allowed levels, the conservancy injudiciously takes what it can get now, with no thought of the environmental impacts of the deal or the implications for future development plans or land prices.

The conservancy causes the standard in the Santa Monica Mountains to become “up-zoning” beyond plan allowances with subsequent increased land values, both of which contribute to future impediments to open-space protection and acquisition.

Yes, some of these are old war stories, and therein lies the problem. The public manages in some cases and at great cost to prevent the conservancy from ruining the very lands it should be trying to protect. So we pay to support the runaway agency that has lost its direction, and then we pay to stop it, and in the long run we pay more than we should for less than we should get.

SUSAN GENELIN

Studio City

* A Times editorial of Dec. 18 criticized the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy for going outside its area to purchase land in the Wilson Canyon area. The Times became just like the other special interest groups who take “pot shots” when they don’t get what they want . . . and sometimes even when they do.

In the big picture, open space is a good thing, no matter if it is in the Santa Monica Mountains, the Verdugos, the Santa Clarita Woodlands or South-Central Los Angeles.

In times of scarce resources, all proponents of open space must draw together to develop a broad-based constituency to get the limited resources that are available. Instead, people become proprietary about their own pet projects.

One example is the groups that campaigned vigorously to save Palo Camado Canyon and got it, then complained that too much was spent for it. How much would have been “too much” had the conservancy not been able to buy the land?

Battles for open space are being staged throughout the Los Angeles area. The conservancy needs our support, as there are much larger and better-funded opponents in the battle to acquire public lands.

Joe Edmiston and his staff should be honored not just for their efforts, but their results. No person or agency can touch the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy’s record for acquiring open space. These are parklands that will be enjoyed by many future generations, long after Edmiston and the conservancy are forgotten.

PETER HEUMANN

Calabasas