Development Project

* On Feb. 18, the last hearing was held for objections to the Newhall Land & Farming Co. project to build a new town of 25,000 houses on land surrounding Magic Mountain. The Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission has now listened to 59 people objecting to this plan. I estimate that 50 people had distinct, separate objections to this badly conceived project.

The objections included school funding issues; infrastructure such as roads, fire stations and libraries; lack of water for new residents; naivete about use of recycled water for irrigation and use of the already contaminated aquifer to store drinking water; insufficiency of proposed waste water treatment and unsafe location of the water treatment plant; possibility of flooding, especially for the 1,000 to 2,000 houses to be built in the flood plain; failure to meet legal requirements for notification of neighboring communities in Ventura County and to hold discussions with their elected officials; danger of earthquake to existing oil fields of the parcel, to the proposed artificial lake to be placed over a concentration of disused oil wells, and to houses and commercial buildings proposed for the most seismically active land in the United States. Damage to the river corridor and its flora and fauna will be severe. Air pollution from increased traffic will not only endanger our lives but also imperil our agricultural industry.

Newhall was given time to reply to the objections. They used about 1 1/2 hours and substantially stood by their plan as initially presented. They did offer, as gestures of conciliation, to install an equestrian trail north of California 126 and to remove a few estate houses from the ridgeline area of the land.

Like myself, many people have come to live in this valley because of its great natural beauty and refreshing quality of life. Those who object to the confiscation of our rich environment and increase of our taxes by Newhall’s construction plans may still be able to affect the outcome. The strength of a democracy is when people speak out.

DORA P. CROUCH

Professor Emeritus

Rensselaer Polytechnic

Institute, Troy, N.Y.

Santa Paula