County OKs Suit to Halt Newhall Ranch Plan

Backed by several cities and environmental groups, Ventura County supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to file a lawsuit to halt the massive Newhall Ranch development in neighboring Los Angeles County.

The cities of Ventura, Fillmore, Oxnard and Santa Paula have vowed to join the county in the legal fight against what would be the largest housing development in Southern California history, with 21,000 units. The project site is just east of the Ventura County line along the Santa Clara River.

Despite protests from their neighbors, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted late last month to approve the environmental report on the new suburb that would serve a population of roughly 68,000. That action sparked what promises to be a drawn-out legal battle that could at least stall the project several years.

“This is a very serious move Ventura County is taking to protect our ground water and clean air,” Supervisor Kathy Long said after the board voted in closed session to pursue legal action. “Their environmental report is severely, severely inadequate. It’s become the poster child of the misuse of space.”

A Newhall Ranch official said Tuesday the developer is confident it will win in court. She dismissed accusations that Newhall has failed to identify a water source for its giant development that would be built over the next 25 years.

“Our environmental report was prepared so that it would withstand any legal challenges,” said Marlee Lauffer, spokesperson for Valencia-based Newhall Land & Farming Co. “To say we have not identified a water source is absolutely untrue.”

Sources include overflow from Castaic Creek, a planned reclaimed-water treatment plant on the project site and anticipated state water supplies, Lauffer said.

Ventura County’s lawsuit is set to be filed in Superior Court by April 22, said Dennis Slivinski, one of two county attorneys working on the case.

The Ventura County Air Pollution Control District, Ventura County Flood Control District, United Water Conservation District, and Fox Canyon Groundwater Management Agency have agreed to join the suit, Slivinski said. The county expects to spend about $521,000 in the court fight.

“My estimate is conservative,” Slivinski said. “We expect Newhall will fight this pretty hard. . . . In the next three or four years, this case will most likely end up in the court of appeals.”

In addition to arguing against the merits of the project’s environmental report, the suit will seek $800,000 in traffic-impact mitigation fees, Slivinski said.

The county will not be alone in its fight. The Ventura City Council voted three weeks ago in closed session to participate in the lawsuit, Deputy Mayor Ray Di Guilio said.

“We felt that this was the type of urban sprawl that the residents in this county do not support, based on SOAR,” said Di Guilio, referring to the growth-control initiative recently approved by voters known as Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources.

The other three county cities were waiting for Tuesday’s action before officially agreeing to join forces, Slivinski said.

John Buse, an attorney for the Environmental Defense Center in Ventura, said his agency would file a separate suit by the end of the month on behalf of several groups. Expected participants are Friends of the Santa Clara River, Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment and the Los Padres chapter of the Sierra Club.

“I’m certain that it will happen,” Buse said. “We’re just waiting to hear from some groups.”

His agency’s suit will argue against building such a dense development near the Santa Clara River, home to federally declared endangered bird species such as the least bells and federally protected animals such as the mountain lion.

Some complaints, however, overlap with the county’s concerns, he said.

“The root of the water problem is that they have not identified a water source for all the homes,” he said.

Agreeing there is now not enough water to supply the entire project, Newhall officials said the developer is prepared to buy more water as needed.

But water is not the only issue raised by opponents of the project.

The California Rural Legal Assistance in Oxnard also may take legal action, arguing that the project fails to provide adequate affordable housing, attorney Eileen McCarthy said.

Although the project includes 2,200 units for rental and sale for low- and moderate-income families, McCarthy said only 440 of those homes were earmarked for families earning $24,000 yearly, or 50% of Los Angeles County’s median income.

As a result, many of the low-income people who will work in the new community as maids, gardeners and food servers, for instance, will seek affordable housing in Piru, Fillmore and Santa Paula, where there already exists a large migrant worker population, she said.

“It will only exacerbate an existing bad [affordable housing] situation in those communities,” she said.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Project Details

* Projected population: 60,000

* Size: 12,000 acres

* Number of units: 21,615

* Open space: 6,138 acres

* Neighborhood parks: 246 acres

* Other amenities: A lake, 200-acre business park and golf course.

* Schools: One high school, one middle school and five elementary schools.

* Projected completion date: 25 years after construction begins.