SYLMAR : Neighbors Fight Effort to Rezone Rural Property

Residents of a Sylmar enclave off the Golden State Freeway are determined to keep their rural lifestyle intact, despite the encroachment of motels and strip malls.

Members of the Sylmar Acres Homeowners Assn. are waging a pitched battle against eight property owners who want to rezone their land near the freeway’s Roxford Street exit from a rural-agricultural designation to commercial.

“We are trying to preserve our way of life,” said Barbara Inkman, 61, who lives nearby and owns two horses. “We intend to fight this all the way. It’s something we truly believe in.”

Inkman’s group wants the six-acre parcel to be developed with homes instead. They have collected almost 600 signatures opposing the commercial rezoning, mostly from residents of the horse-keeping neighborhood, which boasts some two dozen equines, as well as goats, geese and chickens.

The property owners counter that Sylmar has undergone so many changes in the past five years that no one would want to live on their land, which is within earshot of the freeway, a bank of motels and an industrial site.

They have hired land use attorney Ben Reznik, who met with the homeowners several weeks ago.

“They want a residential project, but the land is too close to the freeway for a residential project to have value or to work,” he said of the opponents.

Reznik said the property owners missed out on the development rush in Sylmar over the past decade and are desperate to do something with their land. The owners plan to put the acreage on the market after obtaining the rezoning and plan amendment.

“These are elderly people, not developers, who want to sell their land, so they can live the rest of their lives elsewhere,” Reznik said. “Sylmar was the fastest-growing area of Los Angeles during the 1980s, and they were turned down for (development of) homes then. Now, they have to change the zoning or they won’t be able to sell.”

Emilio Orozco, 72, who lives on his one-acre lot at Cobalt Street and Encinitas Avenue, said he hears the freeway traffic all day and night. “I want to relocate,” he said. “It’s too noisy because of the freeway. I’ve been here since 1960, when it was nice and quiet.”

Pete Rivero, 68, owns the largest parcel in the proposed development site, a three-acre lot that has been vacant for 30 years. He and his business partner, George Benedict, have been trying to develop the land since 1966, when they failed to obtain permission for a multi-residential development.

Councilman Richard Alarcon has announced that he is unable to take a position on the issue because he lives within 300 feet of the site.

Tim Shannon, one of Alarcon’s neighbors, said that he is convinced that a commercial development will mean nothing but trouble.

“There’s a lot of gang activity in this part of the Valley,” Shannon said. “There are a lot of vacancies in the strip malls here, and people congregate in the empty storefronts and sell drugs.”

For Inkman, the loss would be irreplaceable. “This is the last frontier, the last place you can go that’s affordable where you can have horses,” she said. “This is a unique community. We have homes, animals, commercial and industrial--all together. It’s a great place to live, and now they want to take that away.”

The Los Angeles Planning Commission will conduct a hearing on the issue at 9:30 a.m. today at the Mission Hills Inn, 10621 Sepulveda Blvd., Mission Hills.