2 More Suits Blast Newhall Development

Legal challenges continued to mount Thursday as two more suits were filed against Los Angeles County and the Newhall Ranch project, the county’s largest-ever residential development.

The California Affordable Law Project, the Environmental Defense Center and the United Water Conservation District joined Ventura County by filing lawsuits seeking to block plans to wedge 21,615 residential units into the pristine hills between Santa Clarita and the Ventura County line.

The Environmental Defense Center represents Friends of the Santa Clara River, the Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment and the Sierra Club in what they say is a fight to protect the Santa Clara River and its habitat from the negative effects of the development’s human incursion.

“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 SCOPE 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.”

San Fernando Valley Neighborhood Legal Assistance and the California Affordable Housing Law Project joined forces in a separate suit Thursday with a slightly different focus than the environmental groups. These two groups contend that development plans fail to include sufficient affordable housing while simultaneously increasing the need for it.

“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.

On Wednesday, separate lawsuits challenging the Newhall Land & Farming Co. were filed by Ventura County and the United Water Conservation District, each arguing that Los Angeles County officials had failed to adequately address the development’s impact on local water resources.

“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 bears the brunt of the cost of defending the suits, which was a condition of approval, Vannatta said.

San Fernando Valley Neighborhood Legal Assistance represents residents of the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys, and the cities of Burbank and Glendale.

The California Affordable Housing Law Project is a nonprofit program that provides legal support on issues of affordable housing law and policy throughout the state.

Correspondent Pamela J. Johnson contributed to this story.