Residents Object to Land-Use Plan

When the county Board of Supervisors considers the Santa Monica Mountains North Area Plan today, Steve Hess will be carefully monitoring the action.

As chairman of the Cornell Preservation Organization, the Agoura resident is already pondering a potential environmental black eye to a rural swath of land near his home: 108 new homes instead of the 64 he sought in an early draft of the proposal.

Hess and some other residents complain that the latest version of the plan doesn’t go far enough in reducing building density.

The North Area Plan is the land-use blueprint that will guide development for 21,172 acres of rural unincorporated land in the Santa Monica Mountains. Though scores of agencies and community representatives have been working on the plan for years, the Regional Planning Commission made several density changes that drastically increased the number of homes that can be built on several parcels.

Whether those changes--made early last year and in June--remain in the plan is now up to the Board of Supervisors.

From the outset, the North Area Plan was born of controversy.

It is the result of years of development wars pitting residents and environmentalists against the developers who sought to build there. The plan’s stated goal, to “let the land dictate the type and intensity of use,” is a sharp departure from the practice of the county in the 1980s with rampant development in the region.

The current version of the mountains plan, adopted in 1981, was often ignored and a Times analysis revealed that county supervisors, especially Mike Antonovich, whose 5th District once included the region, frequently approved subdivisions much larger than what was permitted.

Under the new plan, about one-third fewer homes--3,700 housing units instead of 5,400--can be built in the 32-square-mile swath of mountains than under the current guidelines. Loopholes, such as those which determine how many homes can be built, have been closed.

But the plan has undergone revisions by the Regional Planning Commission, which defied the wishes of residents like Hess, who clearly wanted fewer homes to be built.

“The single concern we have is [that] the densities of certain properties have been increased above and beyond what the original community groups specified,” said Hess, who lives near Cornell Road in the shadow of Ladyface Mountain. “And of course what happened: Someone sitting in a [commission] hearing room decided they should be drastically increased.”

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said he was confident that the project near Hess’ home, known as Live Oak Ranch, will also be governed by a hillside management ordinance, so that the total number of homes will ultimately be capped at about 80 units.

But Yaroslavsky said he did have concerns about the Regional Planning Commission’s draft changes in June, which increased densities on eight large parcels, some of them hundreds of acres in size. That “upzoning” translates to increasing a proposed density of one house for every 20 acres to one house per 10 acres.

“There’s no question on most of the properties where density was increased, I want it to go back to what was originally recommended by the staff,” he said.

The North Area Plan, Yaroslavsky said, “is the first time that there is a serious plan to protect the natural resources of that whole Ventura corridor. . . . It’s long overdue.”

Whether the plan can satisfy the diverse interests of the region, is another matter.

“We feel the restrictions in the plan will ultimately lead to severe restrictions of equestrians in the Santa Monica Mountains,” said Ruth Gerson, president of Recreation and Equestrian Coalition. “This is not supposed to be an undeveloped nature preserve, it’s supposed to be a recreation area.”

Among the most controversial properties covered by the plan is about 160 acres between the Ventura Freeway and the Calabasas Landfill. Warner Financial Inc. of Agoura Hills has proposed a housing development for the hillside land, a project opposed by area residents.

In June, the North Area Plan draft was revised by the Regional Planning Commission so that one portion of the property will allow 114 homes instead of 22. That proposal was initiated by Commissioner Cheryl Vargo, an appointee of county Supervisor Don Knabe.

“We understand the North Area Plan is here to protect the mountains and we agree with that,” said Frank Trejo, a partner in Warner Financial. “We think the project is appropriate. And we hope the supervisors’ office will approve the planning commission’s approval of density.”

Yaroslavsky, however, questioned the commission’s changes which “gave that property owner more density than what they were asking for.” The property, he said, is the only one that has increased density from what is in the current plan.