Ahmanson Traffic Study Needed

The proposed Ahmanson Ranch development, hotly contested for a decade, would be a lot less controversial if the 10,000 people expected to live there would simply stay in their houses. Unfortunately, most of them are expected to get into cars several times a day and cruise off onto busy San Fernando Valley roads and freeways--and there’s the rub.

Traffic projections used by the Ventura County Board of Supervisors when it approved the planned community in 1992 are now being questioned by the state and by the county next door. Los Angeles County officials say the figures understate the impact on the already-crowded Ventura Freeway by 20% or more. The state Department of Transportation (Caltrans) also has requested an update of the county’s original 1992 report.

Ventura County officials must decide whether a follow-up environmental report, now being conducted, should include an updated traffic study. We believe it should, and not just because eight years have passed.

The figures in the original report are based on projections from the Southern California Assn. of Governments, which did not include Ahmanson Ranch in its analysis. If this report is intended to describe what impacts Ahmanson Ranch would have on the regional environment, traffic clearly must be taken into account--using the most complete and up-to-date figures available.

The 3,050-home Ahmanson Ranch is a sore point between the two counties. It would be built on rolling grasslands and oaks where Ventura County’s southeastern tip meets Los Angeles County. The development’s property tax revenues would flow into Ventura County; its traffic--however you count it--into Los Angeles County.

Los Angeles officials have sent their own projections to Ventura County, covering traffic through 2010. Those numbers had tens of thousands more car trips than what the Ventura County 1992 environmental impact report estimated.

Despite this dispute and others, there are several things about Ahmanson Ranch that make it superior to many other proposed developments:

* The same deal that cleared the way for the 2,800-acre project also guaranteed the public nearly 10,000 acres of open space, including Jordan Ranch and Las Virgenes Canyon, making permanent a substantial buffer between Thousand Oaks and the San Fernando Valley.

* The site is between two already populated areas: Calabasas and Los Angeles.

* Ahmanson Ranch would follow an innovative neo-traditional design with housing for the various income levels likely to be employed there, from large “executive homes” to apartments above shops, backyard “granny flats” and even boarding houses. All dwellings would be laid out within walking distance of shopping areas, unlike the standard mansions-on-fairways model.

We don’t expect any amount of information to eliminate the spirited difference of opinion over Ahmanson Ranch. But the public officials charged with making decisions about it need to do so on the basis of information that is up-to-date and based on sound premises. A new traffic study is needed.