More Study Sought on Ahmanson Ranch Plan

Eight elected officials are asking for an updated environmental impact report on the proposed 3,050-home Ahmanson Ranch project in Ventura County. They say the original report, certified in 1992, is too old and does not accurately reflect current environmental conditions in the area.

“We believe that the substantially changed circumstances in the area absolutely require an updated subsequent” report, Assemblywoman Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills) wrote in a letter this week to Kerry Killinger, chairman of Washington Mutual, which owns the land.

The massive residential, retail and office development is planned near the border with Los Angeles County, which is expected to bear the brunt of traffic into the area.

But Tim McGarry, a spokesman for Washington Mutual, said the lawmakers’ request is premature because Ventura County is in the midst of releasing a supplemental report that takes into account changes that have occurred in the last decade.

“The purpose of [the California Environmental Quality Act] is not to analyze things over and over,” McGarry said. “If something changes, that is genuinely new, there are provisions that allow for a supplemental” report.

McGarry insists that most of the original report is still valid and that those areas requiring updates are under consideration.

Ventura County is supplementing the report’s biological section to address recent concerns about two species found on the land: the California red-legged frog and the San Fernando Valley spineflower, declared an endangered species by the state Fish and Game Commission in August.

Pavley and the others want Ventura County to update the existing report to consider new ways to address concerns such as traffic and pollution. “There have been a lot of changes over the past 10 years,” Pavley said Friday.

The three-page letter is signed by Pavley, state Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks), Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, Agoura Hills Mayor Ed Corridori, Calabasas Mayor Janice Lee, Thousand Oaks Councilwoman Linda Parks and Los Angeles Councilman Dennis Zine.