Green Light for Ahmanson

The last knot keeping the Ahmanson Ranch development tied up in legal limbo was loosened last week, five years after the Ventura County Board of Supervisors gave its blessing to the controversial project.

The Ahmanson Land Co. on Friday signed an agreement with entertainer Bob Hope to purchase the final two properties it was required to buy and set aside as public open space before it could begin to build in the southeast corner of Ventura County.

Those two parcels--Runkle Ranch near Simi Valley and Corral Canyon west of Malibu--were the final pieces in a complicated land swap that permitted Ahmanson to build more than 3,000 homes on 2,400 acres if it added 10,000 acres to the county’s permanent stash of immune-to-undevelopment open space. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy will administer the lands for the public.

Just two weeks earlier, the developer was looking for a way out of the commitment to buy these two parcels, totaling some 4,700 acres. Before that, Supervisor Frank Schillo floated a plan that would have allowed Ahmanson Ranch to proceed without the purchase.

Both efforts were rightly rejected, although if their intention was to scare Hope into making a deal, they may have served their purpose. The main thing that made this development palatable was the prospect of preserving all that open space. To allow the project without that benefit would have been unconscionable.

Once the full 10,000-acre dowry has been assembled, it will be time for the next phase of the epic Ahmanson saga to begin.