County Offers New Vision for Santa Monica Mountains

A growth plan for the Santa Monica Mountains to be unveiled next week is unprecedented in its environmental sensitivity, tightened controls on suburban sprawl and firm line against new road construction in the ecologically fragile area.

The county plan also explicitly rejects any effort by developers to boost the number of homes they build by counting land under public streets as their own, a practice disclosed in a Times analysis of the region’s growth problems.

The new blueprint will guide development into the 21st century, serving as the primary battleground between environmentalists and developers fighting over Los Angeles’ last wild space. The plan, which requires approval by the Board of Supervisors, is scheduled for public hearings in April.

“The county has a different vision out there now,” said Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, whose district includes the mountains. “Our vision is to protect and preserve the environment rather than exploit and destroy it. Every decision we make will be consistent with that vision.”

The new plan promises to cause a major battle in coming months. Several developers already have complained that it reduces the number of homes they may build on their property. Some said the changes are motivated more by politics than any serious concern for the suitability of the land for development.

“It’s all a political thing brought up because a lot of our political leaders want to enhance their environmental platform,” said Brian Boudreau, a local developer and horse farm owner. Under the plan, the housing density allowed on some of his land would be cut in half.

Yaroslavsky, however, said private property rights would be protected.

“Nobody’s proposing we deny people the right to develop their property,” Yaroslavsky said. “We’re saying if you want to develop it, it has to be within a framework that reflects protection and preservation of the environment.”

The county estimates that overall, the new plan permits little or no increase in the number of homes allowed under the current 20-year-old growth plan.

In any case, new construction will be approved only after review under strict new policies that are designed to help limit suburban sprawl. The plan covers the northern half of the Santa Monica Mountains. A new growth plan covering the southern half is still being developed.

The new plan puts the highest priority for undeveloped land on preservation, then recreation. Those criteria represent a potential boon to state and federal park planners seeking to add land to current holdings.

The current plan also stressed the need to “preserve” the environment, but the Board of Supervisors later added language to emphasize private property rights.

The new blueprint also attempts to avoid changes that would permit more homes, once a common practice that allowed an additional 1,100 units beyond the current plan’s growth limits. The Times analysis found that supervisors, especially Mike Antonovich, whose 5th District once included the region, routinely approved such increases, often to developers who made political contributions.

The plan prohibits developers from including land beneath public streets and drainage ditches when calculating how many homes they are allowed to build. The Times series showed that the department repeatedly had allowed developers such latitude.

“This sets a better framework for planning while protecting the environment,” said James Hartl, head of the planning department. “It’s a major effort.”

Observers said the plan is only as good as the county officials who enforce it. The Times reported that the current version of the Santa Monica Mountains plan was routinely ignored, leading to approvals for some subdivisions that were seven times larger than indicated in the plan.

In Ventura County, such practices led frustrated residents to take control of development from county supervisors, approving measures last fall that require voter approval of any changes to local growth plans.

Los Angeles County officials, however, said such worries are unfounded. They noted that to date, 30 property owners have sought increases in the density allowed on their property under the proposed plan. Of those, only seven have succeeded, leading to a net increase of about 30 homes.

“There was no wholesale” increase in the number of homes allowed, said Lee Stark, the county planner in charge of shepherding the new blueprint through the approval process.

Developers, however, say such tight control on new housing actually could exacerbate environmental problems by forcing new growth even farther away from Los Angeles.

That, in turn, could harm environmentally sensitive areas in other regions such as Ventura County and worsen traffic congestion that already exists in the area.

“For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction,” said Rad Sutnar, a development consultant who helped design the original growth plan. “If you reduce growth [in the mountains], you just create another place for it to go.”

The new plan makes clear that new road construction in the area will be discouraged.

That’s bad news for the thousands of commuters who use Las Virgenes or Kanaan roads as shortcuts between Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley or Ventura County.

Intersections in those areas are already rated at the worst level by traffic planners, and future growth promises longer waits.

But local officials say that widening the roads would only encourage growth. And if the clogged intersections scare away more development, all the better.

In another change from past practice, the county’s plan was developed in close cooperation with the four cities that dot the area: Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Hidden Hills and Westlake Village.

Many of those cities had broken away from county jurisdiction partly because it had failed many times to stick to growth limits called for in the plan.

“I’m very pleased with what’s been accomplished,” said Hal Helsley, a former Las Virgenes Water Board member who headed a citizens group that reviewed the plan. “I think it gives a much better feel of what we’ll live with for the next five to 10 years.”