Planning Panel Delays Vote on Tree Removal

The Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission has put off a decision on a developer’s request to remove mature oak trees along a proposed road extension leading into the massive Ahmanson Ranch project in Ventura County.

The Planning Commission voted Wednesday to delay a decision on the matter until after developer Washington Mutual submits tract maps to Ventura County officials for approval this summer, officials said. The panel is expected to take up the matter at its Oct. 13 meeting.

“This isn’t necessarily a setback,” Adrian Rodriguez, a spokesman for the developer, said Thursday. “It doesn’t mean that the project will be delayed.”

The developer, whose project sits on the far eastern edge of Ventura County, but would pour traffic into western Los Angeles County--wants to move nine oak trees from a section of Thousand Oaks Boulevard in Calabasas that will eventually extend to the southern entrance of the 3,050-home project, Rodriguez said.

“We are not concerned that removing the trees will raise any environmental issues because the project itself is environmentally sensitive,” Rodriguez said. “We are proposing to remove the trees along the roadway, but we are also planning to plant 6,000 oak trees throughout the property.”

Still, elected officials representing area residents contend that the project will mean increased traffic and congestion in western Los Angeles County communities.

“As things stand now, you cannot find a single local leader--particularly in Calabasas--whose level of anger at the project is anything but maximum and for good reason,” said Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks) in a telephone interview Thursday from his Washington, D.C., office.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said the removal of mature oak trees should be a last resort.

“You can’t mitigate the removal of these trees by planting new saplings,” he said, “because the newer trees do not equal the magnitude of the ones they destroy.”

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Laura Chick, who represents parts of the west San Fernando Valley, earlier criticized the size of the project and its impact on surrounding communities.