It Adds Up to Petty Politics

Last Tuesday was business as usual in downtown Los Angeles as the Board of Supervisors essentially told opponents of the massive Newhall Ranch development to take a hike.

Supervisors allowed just three hours of comment in what turned out to be the only public hearing on the largest housing project ever proposed in Los Angeles County. And rather than consider the project in a regional context, the supervisors chose to demonstrate how long petty political memories can linger.

Not that anyone really expected much different. But the board had the opportunity last week to improve the way land-use decisions get made in Southern California--or at least to try. Newhall Ranch sits between Ventura County and the city of Santa Clarita, and most of the project’s negative side effects--such as traffic and runoff and school crowding--would be borne by one or the other or both. Yet neither gets an official say in the project. That’s how land-use law is set up in this state, and the fiscal constraints faced by cities and counties after Proposition 13 encourage public officials to squeeze development into pockets where its negative effects get dumped on neighboring jurisdictions.

Obviously, such a cutthroat approach is far from ideal. Regional problems like traffic congestion and smog and water quality cross invisible political lines and demand cooperation, not competition. Newhall Ranch has both its merits and its problems. They should be weighed by the people who benefit--and potentially suffer. But rather than offer Ventura County and Santa Clarita a seat at the table, supervisors instead recalled how in 1992 Ventura County stuck Los Angeles County with Ahmanson Ranch--a project that spent five years in court because its tax dollars and parks would go to Ventura and its traffic would go straight into Los Angeles and Calabasas.

In local politics, two wrongs apparently do make a right. In any case, the board plans to take another look at the project later this spring. Look for an approval. And then look for court hearings challenging that approval to start sometime in the fall or winter. Business as usual.