Newhall Ranch Proposal Attacked

Opponents of the proposed Newhall Ranch housing development criticized plans for the project at a public hearing before the county’s Regional Planning Commission on Tuesday, saying the development is on seismically unsafe ground and could wreck the environment.

The Newhall Land & Farming Co. is seeking to build the largest master-planned housing development in county history. Over a 25-year period, Newhall Ranch would house 70,000 people in about 25,000 apartments, townhomes, condominiums and luxury houses.

The 19-square-mile site is in the Santa Clarita Valley between the Golden State Freeway and the Ventura County line, near Magic Mountain amusement park.

The development would straddle a portion of the 100-mile-long Santa Clara River, the last wild river in Southern California. During Tuesday’s three-hour hearing--which was reserved for opponents of Newhall Ranch--residents from the Santa Clarita Valley and Ventura County said Newhall’s environmental impact report for the housing development failed to adequately address a number of issues, including fault lines near the project.

“This would create the most seismically dangerous community in the county,” said Clarence Freeman, a retired engineer who lives in Fillmore. “Nowhere in the 4,700-page environmental impact report is there any reason to believe we have learned any lessons from the Northridge earthquake.”

A major quake could also cause the failure of Castaic Dam, situated above Newhall Ranch, said Santa Clarita resident Thomas Barron.

“The dam was built to withstand an 8.2-magnitude earthquake,” he said. “Earthquakes of that size sometimes happen, and the project area will not be spared should the dam be breached.”

Other speakers raised objections over the potential effect on traffic, air quality, and the vitality of the Santa Clara River.

Joseph T. Edmiston, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, told the Planning Commission that his agency would not support the development because Newhall Land plans to donate thousands of acres of open space to the private, nonprofit Center for Natural Land Management rather than to a public group like the conservancy.

“We urge this body to assure that there is a public dedication to a public agency so it can be managed in concert with the land [operated by the conservancy] contiguous to it . . . and to ensure that there is public oversight of the property,” Edmiston said.

The commission continued the public hearing until Jan. 16 because all of the project’s opponents did not get a chance to speak.

Although the Planning Commission last month declined to extend the public comment period on Newhall Ranch until Feb. 6, commission members acknowledged Tuesday that the process is very likely to extend at least into mid-February.

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NEXT STEP

A public hearing for opponents of the proposed Newhall Ranch development will continue Jan. 16 at the Hall of Records, 320 W. Temple St., Room 105, Los Angeles.