Ahmanson Ranch Development
Re “Innovation Is the Key,” Valley Edition editorials, June 27.
Your editorial regarding the Ahmanson Ranch development missed the very important issue of traffic. This development of 3,000 homes, two golf courses, shopping centers and theaters will put an additional 50,000 cars on already congested surface streets. The developers may have planned a “superior development” with “neotraditional” design but they ignored the practical issues of traffic and lack of accessibility to freeways. Ventura County wants the development since it will reap the benefits and dump the traffic and congestion on the streets of Los Angeles County.
ALBERT TOMASSIAN
West Hills
* It was ironic to read a Times guest editorial against urban sprawl (“Looking to Sinclair for a Happy End to a Tale of two L.A.s,” Opinion, June 27) in the same paper that an editorial appeared in support of the Ahmanson Ranch mini-city.
The problem with the development is location, location, location. It will connect the San Fernando Valley with the Conejo Valley. It is on land that Ventura County has zoned for open space. It is a critical airshed separating the San Fernando and Conejo valleys in an area with the sixth-worst air pollution in the nation. It will remove more than 1,000 oak trees. The project will generate tens of thousands of daily car trips onto the Ventura Freeway causing rush-hour backups into Thousand Oaks.
Instead of justifying a project that will clearly lower the quality of life for existing residents, The Times should join with the surrounding communities in asking that the land be purchased with federal Land and Conservation Act funds or state park acquisition funds and made into a regional park.
LINDA PARKS
Mayor, Thousand Oaks
* The proposed new city on Ahmanson Ranch is urban sprawl at its worst, not “creative planning.” There is no jobs-housing balance in this development (see its environmental impact report). The development would result in more than 200 new tons of smog a year from the additional 46,000 car trips a day added to the already gridlocked area streets and Ventura Freeway.
Developer Washington Mutual needs to put its bulldozers to work on a blighted area in the San Fernando Valley and build really affordable housing.
Wake up, Washington Mutual, and listen to those who oppose your destroying the unique Ahmanson Ranch with its irreplaceable resources, including the spineflower, endangered red-legged frogs, 8,000 oaks, headwaters of Malibu Creek and rare native grassland. Sell the ranch as parkland to state or federal agencies and help bring a happy end to a “Tale of Two L.A.s.”
MARY E. WIESBROCK
Agoura Hills
* It’s time that The Times stopped looking at this project with rosy glasses.
Expose it for what it truly is, an environmental nightmare that will create havoc to the surrounding communities and destroy the quality of life that we now know and presently enjoy.
JOE BEHAR
Woodland Hills
