Mountain Residents to Fight Tract Proposal

Residents along Cornell Road at first favored the county’s new plan for the Santa Monica Mountains, a blueprint proposing tighter restrictions on suburban sprawl.

Now, as a developer prepares to build a large subdivision nearby, they are not so sure.

The proposed Santa Monica Mountains North Area Plan, still in hearings before the Regional Planning Commission, encourages developers to build homes in clusters to leave more open space.

If approved, the plan would reduce the number of houses proposed near Cornell Road from 129 to 108. But residents of this rural community south of Agoura Hills are opposed to the cluster of homes proposed for their neighborhood and are arguing against the new plan. They say that it would swamp their custom homes in the foothills of Ladyface Mountain in a sea of tract houses.

“Clustering is a bad idea if you’re trying to preserve a rural landscape,” said Steve Hess, a homeowner who heads the Cornell Preservation Organization.

If the subdivision is built, Hess said, “it’s going to be a tract development in a decidedly rural environment. There’s going to be curbs, there’s going to be street lights and repetitive architecture--you know, rows of these little pink houses. When it comes right down to it, that’s exactly what we oppose.”

The debate represents one skirmish in a much larger tug of war over the future of the Santa Monica Mountains, a wild oasis of canyons, ridges and rolling hills stretching north from the Los Angeles metropolitan area to Ventura County.

The current version of the Santa Monica Mountains plan, adopted in 1981, was often ignored. A 1998 Times analysis revealed that county officials approved subdivisions larger than the plan permitted, allowing developers to build 2,200 homes on land designated for 1,000.

The new plan covers 32 square miles in the northern half of the mountains. It aims to balance preservation of undeveloped land with limited growth.

“It reduces the maximum number of homes that could be built throughout the area by approximately 30% and helps ensure that all development is sensitive to the natural resources,” said Lee Stark, the county planner overseeing the proposal.

The Planning Commission could adopt the North Area Plan as soon as April. The county Board of Supervisors must give final approval.

Cornell Road neighbors agree that the plan is better than the current growth blueprint, Hess said, but they object to its emphasis on clustering--particularly a provision that allows developers to expand their projects 25% if they group buildings together to save open space.

The so-called density bonus was added in November at the request of commissioners, Stark said, but the provision is opposed by the planning staff.

Stark suggested that Cornell neighbors hold their fire until the Ladyface project reaches public hearings--and meanwhile lend their support to the North Area Plan.

The Ladyface project is proposed for a 320-acre site in an unincorporated county area near Cornell and Kanan roads. After initially requesting permission for 139 homes, the project’s developer, Vance Moran, has scaled back his proposal to 123 lots. The North Area Plan would whittle the luxury subdivision to no more than 108 lots.

Because the proposed million-dollar houses would be clustered, Stark said, almost 250 acres would be designated as permanent open space.

Moran, a longtime Agoura Hills resident, said he is neither surprised nor concerned by opponents.

“The truth is, the people living down in that area would protest if one home was built on that 320 acres,” Moran said. “They have the attitude that, ‘We’re here, this is our own little isolated area.’ And I think that’s pretty selfish.”