. . . An Environmental Mistake Benefiting Only the Developers

For seven years, a coalition of environmentalists and leaders of neighboring communities have battled to stop the proposed development of Ahmanson Ranch, in the extreme southeastern corner of Ventura County.

More than 10 lawsuits have delayed but failed to kill the 3,050-home project; so have marches and rallies and letter-writing campaigns and attempts to pressure the development’s parent company, Washington Mutual Inc. The developer expects to break ground sometime in 2001.

Yet with the discovery of a field of San Fernando Valley spineflowers--a species thought to be extinct for 50 years--and new legislation designed to offer tax credits for owners who donate such land for public use and conservation, hope of halting the project has received new energy.

Editorial page editors of The Times Ventura County and San Fernando Valley editions recently met with several leading opponents of the Ahmanson Ranch development. Here are excerpts from their comments:

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JANICE LEE, Calabasas City Council member and “probably one of the few people who have read the 45,000 administrative pages on the record on this project.”

To look at what Washington Mutual promotes as a project of sustainable development, we have to look at the definition of a sustainable community. They’ve held this up as a model, so let’s look at it as a model. By definition, a sustainable community:

* Lowers population growth rates. This does not; it’s actually inconsistent with Ventura County’s growth rate.

* Enhances public health. This does not; it would exacerbate the problems of two counties that are already not in compliance with state or federal air quality laws.

* Reduces traffic congestion. This does not; in fact, it would add 50,000 or more car trips a day at the intersections of the Ventura Freeway and Valley Circle Boulevard and Las Virgenes Road, and those impacts would carry out all the way to the San Diego Freeway, to the Hollywood Freeway and back into Camarillo and Ventura County.

* Lessens the impact on water and coastal degradation. This clearly does not, because of the urban runoff.

* Slows the loss of endangered habitats and species. Clearly, this is proposing not only to wipe out amphibians, reptiles, species of birds and prey but now it’s actually discussing ignoring the discovery of an extinct species.

* Arrests the loss of biodiversity. This project would create islands throughout the upper wildlife corridors between the Simi Hills and the Santa Monica Mountains.

* Offers broad-based economic growth. All along, the proponents have said that this project offers jobs and housing. The problem is, it was always housing rich and jobs poor. In reality, the jobs that it would create are less than 1% of the job market for either L.A. or Ventura county. And if you look at the jobs lost by Washington Mutual’s aggressiveness in mergers, they have caused a loss of 3,500 jobs and more than 240 branches of their banks have gone under. That is a greater loss than all of the jobs that would be produced in the entire life of this project.

* Safeguards and respects the resources of other communities. This project has defied all of the jurisdictions surrounding it, upon which it depends for access and ancillary services, including the traffic impact.

On all the essential elements of sustainable development, Ahmanson Ranch fails. And that is why Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks) has asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a full environmental review, why Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) has requested the Regional Water Quality Control Board to investigate the inadequate mitigation measures, and why the city of Calabasas is asking for emergency listing of the endangered flower. It also accounts for why more than 80 homeowner associations have opposed this project. They all recognize the simple and obvious truth: Something is terribly, terribly wrong with this project.

The biological impacts are taking on new import because of the discovery of the red-legged frog and the spineflower. Perhaps it sounds to some as though we’re being picky but I dare say if somebody discovered a living, breathing dinosaur in their backyard that had been thought extinct for 10,000 years, I don’t think anybody would be suggesting a barbecue.

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SUZANNE GOODE, associate resource ecologist with the California Department of Parks and Recreation. She emphasizes that her department does not support or oppose projects but will reiterate what is on the public record.

The Ahmanson project is located in the upper watershed of Malibu Creek, the largest watershed in the Santa Monica Mountains. The California Department of Parks and Recreation owns and operates the 7,000-acre Malibu Creek State Park, which is directly downstream from the Ahmanson project, as well as Malibu Lagoon, one of only three significant coastal wetlands remaining in Los Angeles County, a very sensitive area for birds and fish and other wildlife.

We have long had concerns about this project regarding its impact on water quantity, from increased paved surfaces, and on water quality, from the golf courses and commercial uses and residences, fertilizers and toxics.

The Malibu Lagoon is home to two federally endangered fish species: the tidewater goby and the southern steelhead, both of which depend on good-quality water free of excess sedimentation for their spawning areas. We have concerns that both of these species would be negatively impacted by the Ahmanson project.

The Ahmanson Ranch serves as a portion of one of only two wildlife corridors that link the Santa Monica Mountains to other natural areas. Without these linkages the Santa Monicas are in danger of becoming a biological island surrounded by development on three sides and the Pacific Ocean on the fourth side.

The Santa Monica Mountains are an extremely rich Mediterranean ecosystem, a type of system that is second only to the tropical rain forest in biological diversity. The animal populations that make up this ecosystem depend on having top predators, large carnivores that need very large areas over which to range, find mates, exchange genetic material. Without the important wildlife corridors, these species will die out in the Santa Monica Mountains, be unable to find mates, be hit by cars if they wander out. This will cause a ricocheting effect throughout the ecosystem as deer and other prey are allowed to reproduce more freely, and that can lead to vegetation changes as well as a loss of biological diversity.

There are a number of sensitive plant communities on the Ahmanson Ranch. The two that we have commented extensively on are the valley oak savanna and the native grasslands.

California native grasslands are the most extirpated plant community in the state; less that one-tenth of 1% of this community remains. There used to be about 20 million acres of it in California. We’re down to just a handful of stands, most of them less than 1,000 acres. Most of those are less than 10% to 15% covered with grasses. The Department of Fish and Game considers any parcel that exceeds 10 acres and has 10% native grasses to be significant and worthy of preservation. The Ahmanson Ranch contains 400 acres of native grassland in remarkably good condition, in some instances containing over 40% cover of native grasses.

The valley oak savanna, in our opinion, is unequaled in the area. We also have a valley oak preserve in Liberty Canyon and Malibu Creek State Park that was set aside specifically to preserve valley oak habitat and enable the oaks to reproduce. The Ahmanson Ranch contains far more acreage than Malibu Creek State Park and it’s of much higher quality. The specimens are larger and of greater physical beauty than those in Liberty Canyon Natural Preserve, which was set aside for that.

We have expressed concern that the land purchases do not mitigate the loss of this sensitive habitat. There is not comparable valley oak or much grassland habitat at all on these so-called mitigation lands.

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LINDA PARKS, mayor of Thousand Oaks.

Part of the concern for Thousand Oaks is traffic. Backups are anticipated all the way to the beginning of the Conejo Grade. That affects our air quality. And speaking of that, it is so vital to have that airshed separating the San Fernando and Conejo valleys.

We talk about the land dedications [of open space]. It was the impression of all those at the hearings that we went to that Ahmanson was to give those lands. It was a big shock to find out that we are going to be using tax dollars to mitigate the impact of Ahmanson Ranch. The lands that are being purchased aren’t really buildable lands. As cities are being built out, the only areas left are the steep areas. As far as animal habitat goes, they need flat areas too.

It really is going to affect our quality of life, at least through Thousand Oaks if not farther. I’ve talked with the mayor of Moorpark, who is also concerned. I’ve talked with people from Oak Park School District, who are concerned about children from Ahmanson coming to their high school. I don’t believe that it is, in any sense of the word, sustainable.

Part of my objection was the fact that we never did do an analysis of the soils, and you could have a lot of contamination--which we have found out, since the EIR [environmental impact report], was true all around Rocketdyne--and that is a major concern also, as well as the 4,000 oak trees to be removed.

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GORDON MURLEY, president of Woodland Hills Homeowners Assn., president of San Fernando Valley Federation and immediate past president of the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Assns..

The problem we always have is “cumulative effects.” Cumulative effects don’t diminish, they get worse--and you can’t get rid of them. And mitigation? To mitigate really means that you don’t make it worse, you exchange it for something equal. None of these [Ahmanson Ranch] mitigations are going to make anything better; they’re all going to make it worse. The taxpayers are going to pay for all the damage downstream.

What person in his right mind would destroy his watershed and destroy where he lives? And yet Ventura County, Los Angeles County and Orange County all have created this problem by what they say: “Oh, we have to do it for the Homo sapiens.”

The newspapers love to say that homeowner groups and environmentalists are against development. The stupidity of development is what we’re against. The unplanned, the unbridled and the idea that because you own a damn bulldozer you think you can tear everything up rather than design something that will fit an area and not degrade it to the point that you have a South-Central Los Angeles that nobody wants to live in--and that’s flat land! I don’t see any developers running down there to develop it.

There’s something wrong with the development industry and the mentality of bureaucracies. And if we don’t start changing it in favor of quality of life and preservation of what has to be balanced to protect our watersheds, we can’t afford to live here anymore. It’s that simple. There isn’t enough money to sustain all these people here when you have to spend a fortune to keep your water potable. And we think it’s time the newspaper told Ventura County, “You don’t stick it to somebody else and think it’s not going to hit you. It will.”

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JOE BEHAR, president of the West Valley Community Coalition, comprising homeowner associations and individual homeowners in the Canoga Park-Woodland Hills-West Hills area.

There’s one common denominator for the homeowners who have populated this area: They didn’t come because they had to live there but because they wanted to live in this area. Fresh air, lower congestion, better schools--all the things that most people want.

That is going to change if Washington Mutual gets its wish of developing this environmental treasure.

Ninety percent of the traffic that’s going to enter this new city is going to be channeled through our neighborhoods. We’re going to be breathing the pollution.

We’re going to be inhaling the 20,000 tons of airborne pollutants that are going to happen when they tear down the mountain. What are my kids going to be breathing when they’re playing in the backyard? We are really concerned that that grading--eight years of continuous grading--is going to end up right here, in the lungs.

The developers say only a few people are opposed to this project. I asked them, “Point me to the people who are in favor of this project.” There are none, except the people who are going to make the big money.

As far a we’re concerned, they have a complete disregard for the effects of what their new city is going to do to the residents and the communities that surround their project. And they continue to demonstrate this by the verbiage they use--that there are no problems, that this is something the area needs.

What do we need two more golf courses and a resort here for? Why do we need to destroy an environmental treasure--for the sake of golf courses and a resort?

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MARY WIESBROCK, director of Save Open Space.

All the accesses for this project are into Los Angeles County; not a single one goes into Ventura County. So all the impact and all the cars are into the adjacent county.

Over on the 101 [Ventura Freeway], traffic consultants said we need five lanes on each side--and this was back in 1992. Ahmanson Land Co. was not required to put one penny into widening the freeway. They will add tens of thousands of cars every day onto that 101.

We want to stop Ahmanson City but we want to preserve the Ahmanson Ranch. State Sen. Jack O’Connell (D-San Luis Obispo) has introduced the same tax-credit bill four years in a row, and this time it will pass. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy has supported that bill, saying that the Ahmanson Ranch would be a perfect place to conserve with this tax credit bill. Washington Mutual could get a big tax credit if it donates the ranch. Also, state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles) and another senator have put together a park bond bill that would be another vehicle to save the ranch. And the [U.S.] Land and Water Conservation Fund is $900 million a year that comes in from oil companies to mitigate offshore drilling, and it can be spent nationwide to buy parkland. This project wouldn’t require anywhere near that amount.

It can happen. If everyone can make it happen, you can change things and we can save this valuable property.