Zoning Plan Revised to Ease Restrictions on Horses

A month after an angry stampede by horse owners and stable users, a compromise was shaping up to control commercial land use in a rural Santa Monica Mountains area south of Agoura Hills.

To move forward with the compromise, the county Regional Planning Commission agreed on Wednesday to dump the original zoning proposal, which would have added tighter restrictions on the presence of horses.

The commission’s action was spurred by Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. His original “light resort and recreation” zone was first proposed in 1998 after neighbors complained about a Triunfo Canyon home known as Fantasy Island, a frequent party palace rented out for noisy weddings and bar mitzvahs.

Yaroslavsky said that proposal was “hijacked” by the county Regional Planning Commission, which he said also added on tighter restrictions for horses on properties.

“It went far beyond anything contemplated by [the Board of Supervisors], and it became perceived as an assault on horse owners in the Santa Monica Mountains, which is the last thing we wanted to do,” Yaroslavsky said.

Instead of a new zone--which would have paired recreational uses with environmental protection by adding conditional use permits for inns, campgrounds, riding academies and stables--Yaroslavsky plans a new set of guidelines for the Triunfo Canyon and Mulholland Highway area west of Malibu Lake.

These guidelines, which take the form of a community standards district, would require public hearings for commercial uses, but they won’t affect homeowners with horses or businesses such as riding academies and stables, said Laura Shell, Yaroslavsky’s planning deputy.

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Current businesses, Shell said, would also be grandfathered in for 20 years.

But Ruth Gerson, president of the Recreation and Equestrian Coalition, a group of horse enthusiasts, said many horse-friendly advocates are still wary of the county’s actions.

“I do think he was sensitive to the community’s concerns,” Gerson said of Yaroslavsky’s new concept. “However, this is really just the beginning to work things out.”

Gerson, who keeps horses at her Agoura home, said she opposed any grandfather clause for businesses. Once a stable or riding academy closes, a new facility won’t be able to replace them, she said.

Before the new community district proposal is drafted, Shell said a community meeting will be held this summer, probably in July, to gather local input. The draft concept may be back before the Regional Planning Commission in the fall.

One key element of the original proposed zone change was to address water that may be polluted from horse properties.

The Triunfo Canyon and Mulholland Highway area, part of the Malibu Creek watershed, is already under a separate review by the California Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Under a March 1999 consent decree with Heal the Bay and the Santa Monica BayKeeper, the agency is studying the area to identify possible runoff contamination, said Melinda Merryfield-Becker, a unit chief for the water board.

Horse manure, she said, can be a source of both the nitrogen and pathogens that can pollute the Malibu Creek watershed, ultimately tainting the ocean, which is its terminus.

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Possible runoff contamination can come from many sources: corrals, irrigation, and sewage treatment plants, Merryfield-Becker said. The water study should be completed by next summer.

Water quality is an issue that the planning commission must look at, Yaroslavsky said. “There is a legitimate concern if there are stables with 150 horses,” he said. “Those are issues that should be dealt with separate and apart from this.”