Ahmanson Opponents File Suit Over Approval of Environmental Study

Opponents of the controversial Ahmanson Ranch development filed a lawsuit Monday, seeking to overturn approval of a new environmental study of the 3,050-home project on the Ventura County border near Calabasas.

The lawsuit, filed in Ventura County Superior Court, accuses county planning commissioners of violating the state’s open-meeting law by visiting the site at separate times before their vote last month to approve the project.

Those visits, which were not open to the public, amounted to a “serial meeting” conducted in violation of the law known as the Brown Act, the lawsuit contends.

“What the Brown Act says is do the public’s business in public and let them know you are going to do it,” Calabasas Mayor Lesley Devine said.

That city, along with residents of Ventura and Los Angeles counties, filed the suit against the county of Ventura, its Planning Commission and developer Ahmanson Land Co.

“It’s outrageous,” Devine said. “I’m a public official; I know better. They are public officials, and they know better.”

A representative of the Ventura County counsel’s office said attorneys there had not seen the lawsuit and would not comment on it.

A spokesman for Ahmanson’s parent company, Washington Mutual Bank, said he believes the suit is baseless.

“The Planning Commission held two days of public testimony and then deliberated and made their decision at a public meeting,” spokesman Tim McGarry said.

“It is our view that there is no legal basis for Calabasas to claim a Brown Act violation.”

Washington Mutual wants to build a $2-billion golf course community on the 2,800-acre ranch of oak savanna and grassy plains.

However, those plans have been delayed by years of litigation and the discovery in 1999 of the endangered red-legged frog and spineflower on the property.

Last month, the County Planning Commission voted 3 to 2 to endorse a new environmental study of the project, clearing the way for the Board of Supervisors to consider the study on Dec. 10.

Opponents want a court order temporarily preventing the project from moving through the approval process, including postponement of the supervisors’ meeting.

A hearing on the order has been set for Wednesday morning before Superior Court Judge Henry Walsh.

The lawsuit also seeks to compel the Planning Commission to rescind its approval of the project and schedule a publicly noticed visit to the site, providing parties on all sides the opportunity to tour the property.

“I think it’s unconscionable that these commissioners were out there in the first place,” said Thousand Oaks attorney Ed Masry, who is representing individual plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

“It’s just big-business Washington Mutual trying to bully its way into making millions off of a project that shouldn’t be built in the first place,” said Masry.

A delay in approval could allow Supervisor-elect Linda Parks, an Ahmanson Ranch critic, to join the board before a final vote. Parks is to replace Thousand Oaks-based Supervisor Frank Schillo in January.