Mitigating the Urban Blob
Although still far from perfect, plans for Newhall Ranch improved last week after the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors ordered substantial revisions to the massive housing project proposed for the hills between Santa Clarita and the Ventura County line. Among the changes requested: fewer homes, more affordable housing, better access to parkland, tougher rules on water use and restrictions on building too close to the Santa Clara River.
In short, the board homed in on many of the criticisms raised by opponents and sought to ease at least some of the negative effects feared by residents, school officials, environmentalists and civic leaders who live and work in the communities surrounding the project. All of the cuts and changes ordered last week were appropriate measures to help ensure that new development does not overburden existing communities or destroy natural resources.
Surprisingly, much of the credit for the changes belongs to Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who represents the area. Antonovich earned a reputation in the 1980s as the sort of politician who never met a developer he didn’t like. Dissatisfaction with the county’s development approval practices helped fuel incorporation drives in Santa Clarita and Calabasas. Many leaders of those campaigns vilified Antonovich for not doing enough to regulate growth in his district. Yet Antonovich was instrumental in setting up the negotiations that led to last week’s revisions, which Newhall Land executives promised to honor.
The board specifically asked the company to:
* Reduce the number of houses and condos by 15%, or 3,500 units.
* Add more low- and moderate-income housing to the project.
* Avoid building on environmentally sensitive areas.
* Keep built areas at least half a mile from the Ventura County line and at least 100 feet from the banks of the Santa Clara River.
* Open parkland to the public sooner than planned.
* Make explicit that the project would not depend on ground water.
Anyone familiar with the development approval process knows that give-and-take is part of the game. Developers routinely apply for more units than they need to turn a profit because they understand that, after the cuts, they’ll end up with the project they initially envisioned. To a certain extent, that’s what happened last week with Newhall Ranch. Dropping 3,500 units from a 24,000-home project is a deep cut, but one that any smart developer would have expected. But writing off the board’s requests as business-as-usual haggling overlooks the significance of some of the changes.
For instance, adding affordable housing to a project usually means increasing the number of units. In this case, supervisors added affordable housing while cutting the overall size of the project. At the same time, restrictions on building should reduce the project’s encroachment on environmentally sensitive stretches of the river. Perhaps most important, the promise not to rely on ground water should assuage farmers and others in the Santa Clara River Valley who fear that the project would suck the area’s water supply right out from under them.
The restrictions imposed last week are significant. And while they calm the fears of some, they do nothing to ease the opposition of others. To be sure, Newhall Ranch is a big project--the largest ever proposed in Los Angeles County. Despite the carefully manipulated formulas of the environmental impact report, no amount of mitigation measures will completely erase the project’s negative effects. Covering the tracks of 70,000 people is virtually impossible. Traffic will increase. Development pressure will mount as the urban blob spreads west toward Ventura.
But there is a certain inevitability to Newhall Ranch. After years of sluggish growth, Southern California has begun to pick up steam--creating demand for housing and jobs. Cutting off growth won’t work. The trick is to manage it. Despite its unavoidable problems, Newhall Ranch represents a logical extension of the metropolis. With a single developer such as Newhall Land, public officials can make the kinds of demands they did last week. No development project is perfect, but last week’s cuts to Newhall Ranch demonstrate that the public still has a voice in how its communities develop.
