2 More Suits Over Newhall Project Filed

Two more Ventura County groups joined the legal battle Thursday against the Newhall Ranch development, filing separate lawsuits against the giant housing project planned in neighboring Los Angeles County.

The Environmental Defense Center and California Rural Legal Assistance joined Ventura County, which filed suit Wednesday, to block plans for the 21,615-unit development that is to be built in the rolling hills between Santa Clarita and the Ventura County line.

The center represents Friends of the Santa Clara River, the Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment and the Sierra Club in their fight to protect the Santa Clara River from any environmental threats posed by the new suburb.

“The suit is aimed at temporarily halting the project to determine if modifications can be made or if alternative uses of the site can be found to make it more compatible with the environment,” said John Buse of the Environmental Defense Center.

Members of SCOPE said they felt litigation was their only recourse.

“We would have preferred that it was dealt with through the planning process,” said spokeswoman Lynne Plambeck. “I don’t think any of us are happy to have to deal with this this way. It’s very expensive, and very, very stressful.”

The Ventura office of the California Rural Legal Assistance and the San Fernando Valley Neighborhood Legal Assistance filed a joint lawsuit on behalf of two Ventura County farm workers and two low-income residents who live in Los Angeles County.

The residents claim the Newhall project will increase demand for available affordable housing in their areas. Many of the low-income people who would work in the new community as maids, gardeners and food servers, for example, will seek housing in Piru, Fillmore, Santa Paula and Santa Clarita, where there is already an affordable housing shortage, according to the suit.

Fillmore resident Silvestre Silva and Santa Paula resident Luis Serrano are named as petitioners in that suit, along with Maria Vega of Val Verde and Laverne Drew of Lancaster.

“They went ahead and approved a specific plan that doesn’t provide enough affordable housing based on what the need is in L.A. County,” said Mona Tawatao of the San Fernando Valley legal group.

Their suit also charges that the environment will suffer from pollution caused by motorists traveling long distances to reach jobs in the new community. The goal is to have the development contain enough affordable housing for the low-wage workers who will support the development’s higher-income residents, Tawatao said.

The United Water Conservation District is using a court challenge to get the developer to prepare a new environmental impact report, believing county officials haven’t adequately addressed the development’s potential effects on local water resources.

The district filed suit Wednesday against the developer and Los Angeles County.

“I don’t want them to throw up a bunch of houses and find out their identified sources of water are unavailable and then they start using ground water,” said Dana Wisehart, deputy general manager of the water district.

A deputy to Supervisor Mike Antonovich said Los Angeles County is “very confident” that it will prevail against all four lawsuits.

“They’ve made it clear all along that they were going to sue, so they’re just following through on what they said,” Dave Vannatta said. “Our office--and I believe the whole board--we’ve involved every reasonable mitigation we could to address their concerns.”

Newhall Ranch’s developer will bear the brunt of the cost of defending the suits, which was a condition of approval, Vannatta said.

Times Community News reporter Pamela J. Johnson contributed to this story.