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County Not Placated by Development Concessions

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SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

Despite a proposal to scale back the massive Newhall Ranch housing development, Ventura County officials and environmentalists Wednesday vowed to continue fighting to ensure their concerns are not ignored.

On Tuesday, Supervisor Kathy Long said concessions proposed by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors were welcome and offered an opportunity to resolve outstanding issues--from water to wildlife--without litigation.

But those comments should not be interpreted to mean that Ventura County has been largely placated, local officials said.

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“We have been stonewalled up until just yesterday,” Supervisor Frank Schillo said Wednesday. “For us having a supervisor in L.A. County listening to what we had to say . . . and incorporate those [comments] into the project in L.A. County--that was a big step. But the devil is in the details in getting these things accomplished. We don’t give up our right to sue.”

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich characterized the board’s suggested changes--including reducing the 24,000-home project by about 15%--largely as an effort to accommodate Ventura County.

The conditions were also an outgrowth of his own misgivings about the project’s magnitude and its effect on the environment and existing roads and other infrastructure, Antonovich said. But local environmentalists questioned whether his suggestions, which the full board endorsed, amounted to much of a difference anyway.

“It felt like they were throwing a tidbit in the direction of those people who needed something, but it certainly wasn’t adequate,” said Alisse Weston, spokeswoman for the Ventura office of the Environmental Defense Center. “We need to continue pushing.”

Ron Bottorff, chairman of the Friends of the Santa Clara River, gave this snap assessment: “Better, but still not good enough.”

Proposed by Newhall Ranch & Farming Co., the housing project would provide homes for almost 70,000 people, making it the largest single development in Los Angeles County history. Newhall Ranch would be just over the county line from the rural Santa Clara Valley.

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Antonovich’s motion addressed some--but not all--of the issues Ventura County is worried about, said Ventura County planner Scott Ellison. Furthermore, he said he is reserving judgment on exactly what will result from those suggested changes.

“It’s a move in the right direction,” Ellison said. “They did show progress in several areas that we’re concerned about, but the progress is only general. . . . They’ve got to be translated into concrete programs.”

For instance, while Antonovich’s motion mandated a half-mile agricultural buffer between the development and the Ventura County line--about 2 1/2 times what local officials had requested--Ellison noted the project could still hamper the movement of wildlife along nearby Salt Creek in Ventura County.

Dealing with the area’s wildlife was among more than half a dozen specific conditions the Ventura County Board of Supervisors suggested be imposed on the developer in a July 14 letter to its Los Angeles counterparts. Other conditions ranged from requiring payment of $850,000 in local traffic mitigation fees to developing affordable housing to accommodate all income levels.

But while the Los Angeles board called for more affordable housing, just how those units would be priced remains to be seen, Ellison said.

So far, the company has seemed content to allow market forces to dictate what is considered affordable housing based on the density of certain neighborhoods, he said. Luxury condominiums in Century City, for example, may be dense, but out of the reach of moderate- and low-income people, Ellison said.

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In another move, Antonovich’s motion directs Newhall Ranch to ensure its project will see no “net” use of ground water.

Ellison noted that the company has already said it won’t do that, but could pump water in dry years that it had injected into underground reservoirs during wet years. Environmentalists and Ventura County officials doubt such an approach would work and believe Newhall could end up using more water than it had stored.

Even the concession of reducing the number of homes by Antonovich’s suggested 3,500 is suspect, local opponents maintain.

“The number of units aren’t that much different,” Bottorff said. “I think it’s still too big, and too many issues remain to get away from lawsuits.”

Indeed, while Newhall spokesman Marlee Lauffer on Wednesday described Antonovich’s proposals as “very tough on the project,” she noted that 3,500 homes may not be cut.

Lauffer said the figure is an estimate and that Antonovich left open the possibility for some homes to be added back later as part of the development’s affordable-housing component.

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