Equestrians Bridle at Builder’s Impact on Trails

Ever since hundreds of postage stamp-size lots were drawn onto subdivision maps 70 years ago, residents of the quaint Twin Lakes Park and Deerlake Highlands communities in the craggy hills north of Chatsworth have dreaded development but feared it was inevitable.

The more than 200 acres of rugged property at the north end of Canoga Avenue have served for decades as the playground of equestrians, hikers and mountain bikers. The number of visitors has grown steadily as housing tracts pushed to the foot of the Santa Susana Mountains, gobbling up orange groves and ranches and boosting the Valley’s million-plus population.

Now, miles of city-maintained trails in tract developments lead to the pristine area, which offers a year-round creek, shady canyons and ridges that afford breathtaking, panoramic views. Fires, drought, property devaluations and a stagnant housing market have kept the builders at bay.

Until now.

A developer who recently purchased a large chunk of the area has told residents he plans to build an equestrian-friendly community there.

Then this month, much to the consternation of trail users, chain barricades were raised across half a dozen trails, and an electric gate soon will block the only road up the mountain.

The action has triggered an outcry among equestrians and others, who accuse the developer of reneging on a promise. And, just weeks after they were installed, chains and signs already have been vandalized and ripped out.

“This whole thing is really getting out of hand,” said Lynn Leonard, president of a local equestrian group. “It is just escalating beyond belief.”

Consultants who work with the developer, Doug Riley of Bell Canyon, said he is out of the country and could not be reached for comment. But they said preliminary plans indicate that between 60 and 100 homes may be built in the area. Los Angeles County real estate records show that the project--called Chatsworth Ridge Estates--already is funded with a $2-million construction loan.

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Trail users have been told by a Riley representative that the barricades are the work of a handful of residents who live in the remote area. But those residents say Riley ordered the work done and is paying for all improvements, including roads that are newly graded and topped with gravel.

The gate also is being installed at Riley’s expense, but owners of homes and property in the area will have access, according to the developer’s representatives. The barriers are needed to reduce landowners’ liability, halt vandalism and illegal dumping and reduce fire dangers and other hazards, the spokespersons said.

Trail users have been told to be patient, that another route will be opened for them. “We are working out some alternative means by which the equestrians could continue to go up into the hinterlands,” said Hans Giraud, a civil engineer who works for the developer.

But equestrians say they don’t trust the developer because the barricades were installed immediately prior to an announced April 6 trail ride in which more than 50 riders participated. Organizers had to scramble to change the route at the last minute.

Carl von Mulldorfer--who works for the developer, lives in the barricaded community and installed the chains--called the incident “a matter of unfortunate bad timing.”

But Leonard said the action began a battle that is rapidly expanding. “A lot of people are upset and getting involved,” said Leonard, who leads the Rocky Mountain Riders chapter of Equestrian Trails Inc., a national lobbying group that works to preserve and develop trails.

“We’re very worried that they are trying to block access to areas that people have been using for decades,” she said.

Giraud denies the accusations, saying the developer wants to retain the rural flavor of the area. “There is nothing secretive about this thing,” he said, explaining it is too soon to announce any conceptual plans for the project.

The Twin Lakes and Deerlake subdivisions were mapped in 1927 with hundreds of tiny lots averaging about 4,000 square feet. Known as “paper subdivisions,” the properties contain many unbuildable lots on steep hillsides. In the early days, lots were often awarded as prizes in promotional campaigns on the East Coast and elsewhere.

Other than sporadic construction of vacation cabins, the Depression-era subdivisions never boomed, according to residents and early newspaper reports.

The twin lakes were formed by a man-made stone and concrete dam across Devil’s Canyon Creek. One-lane Saugus Road atop the 40-foot-high dam serves as the only access into the vast mountain region of the subdivisions. According to Giraud, the road is privately owned--by whom is unclear--and dedicated to use by all landowners in the area.

The lakes dried up for a while around 1947 following a seven-year drought, according to a 1962 newspaper interview with one of the area’s pioneers. Local lore also has it that a second dam forming the lakes was demolished in the 1950s after a teenage girl drowned, and the lakes have been dry since.

A small area of Twin Lakes, south of the bridge, is crowded with a mix of houses ranging from tiny cabins to three-story modern homes on cramped lots along narrow, rutted dirt roadways. The county enacted new building standards a number of years ago to halt construction of oversize homes.

Only seven homes, built in the 1920s through 1940s, remain on the north side of the bridge after a devastating 1970 brush fire destroyed dozens of others, residents say. New construction has been prohibited since then because the narrow bridge does not allow access for adequate fire protection, according to county officials.

Giraud said the northern area of Twin Lakes has about 400 lots and there are hundreds more in the Deerlake Highlands subdivision that reaches high into the mountains at the top of Saugus Road.

Riley now owns about 300 lots, mostly in the northeastern area of the Twin Lakes, Giraud said. The other 100 or so Twin Lakes lots belong to a variety of investors and the county, many acquired through tax-delinquency sales.

The developer plans to reconfigure lots throughout the project, combining three or four lots for a single dwelling, Giraud said. Determining who owns what lots and where has made the planning process “slow and laborious,” he said.

“We will work with the owners of the other 100 lots to make sure they are happy with the [development] concept,” Giraud added.

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Any new development in the area would require the construction of new roads and a bridge across the creek. The road would extend northward from Canoga Avenue, which currently turns into dirt under the Ronald Reagan Freeway. That site leads to a backbone equestrian trail that runs along the northern and western rim of the Valley.

The project also would require the installation of new water and sewer lines. The area now relies on individual septic systems and a water system from the Las Virgenes district that is inadequate and outdated, Giraud said.

“We don’t want to use urbanized standards, but rather keep the rural setting, with construction and grading minimal to fit the landscape,” Giraud said. “Any proposed development would benefit all the people in Twin Lakes.”

Riley is an experienced builder who also owns undeveloped portions of Indian Wells Estates, a custom luxury-home project at the north end of Topanga Canyon Boulevard, Giraud said, adding that there are no plans to link the two developments nor to build such large homes in Twin Lakes.

According to public documents, Riley purchased the Twin Lakes property in 1995 from a New Jersey holding company, Calton Homes Inc., which has projects throughout the country, including developments directed by Riley in Colorado and Florida.

Even though trail riders are being told that residents north of the bridge erected the barricades, some homeowners say they do not wholly support the blockage, although they believe the gated entrance will increase property values.

“I enjoy the horseback riders. It gives the area a nice country atmosphere,” said Mark Watters, a pianist-composer and avid mountain biker who bought his remodeled 1929 Southwestern-style home five years ago.

“I am not so naive as to think that development is never going to happen,” Watters added.

“The developer is entitled to make money on his investment. Yet I think we all are concerned that there is a certain flavor and personality to this area that has been here for decades, and we want to make sure it is kept as the area develops,” Watters said.

“I’m not sure that someone can build 75 homes or so up here without ruining that.”

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On the other hand, Falcon Briley, a stuntwoman who grew up in her family’s north Twin Lakes home of 30 years, said she is relieved to have barricades on one trail that passes within five feet of her bedroom.

Although she herself raises and rides horses, Briley said the volume of riders and other trail users “has quadrupled in the last few years.”

“There are numerous other trails the riders can use,” Briley said, “but there seems to be a problem with them wanting to go right by my house. One or two riders coming by is wonderful, but enough is enough.”

Briley said she is disgusted by the litter, graffiti and destruction wrought on the area by visitors, although not necessarily equestrians. “We used to have a nice little scenic park down in the canyon by the creek where my sister and I would ride 25 years ago,” she said. “Now I go there and I’m just appalled. There are beer cans and trash and garbage everywhere.”

The most adamant advocate of barricades is Von Mulldorfer, the developer’s representative, who has lived in the area for 13 years. He said equestrians can easily go around chain barriers, which are designed to keep out unwanted vehicles. He also said riders will be able to circumvent the gated bridge crossing by using another, as yet unidentified trail.

“We really want to accommodate the equestrian community. It’s just not mapped out yet,” he said.

But Bryan McQueeney of Chatsworth, who rides regularly with his wife and daughter along Canoga Avenue bridle trails into the hills of Twin Lakes, said he doesn’t trust promises.

“It’s really a question of integrity,” said McQueeney, who was among the riders on the detoured equestrian event. “If you can’t take his word that he will leave a gate open, what do we do when he promises to give us trail access in exchange for permission to develop?”