By HOWARD FINE
Staff Reporter
Late last November, two Ventura County supervisors traveled to the L.A. County Hall of Administration to testify against the massive Newhall Ranch development project. They were unsuccessful; the Board of Supervisors approved the 21,615-home project despite their strenuous objections.
That same day, the remaining three members of the Ventura County Board of Supervisors voted 2 to 1 to keep the 3,050-home Ahmanson Ranch project on track, over the objections of elected officials in Calabasas, Agoura Hills and Los Angeles County.
The result? Ventura County officials have threatened to sue L.A. County over water supply and other environmental impacts of Newhall Ranch. Calabasas and L.A. County sued to block Ahmanson Ranch years ago but the developer prevailed, and so now they can do little but complain loudly.
Welcome to master-planned community development, Southern California-style, where it’s city against city, county against county, and environmentalist against developer.
“Polarization and conflict over development have increased generally throughout Southern California, and this certainly translates to jurisdictions,” said Julie Gertler, president of Consensus Planning Group, a Los Angeles-based community relations firm that represents developers and jurisdictions. “It all comes down to who gets the benefits and who gets the negative impacts.”
In each of the above cases, the county approving the project receives most of the benefits, while the adjoining county perceives it will bear much of the burden. In the case of Newhall Ranch, Ventura County officials fear the project will ruin the Santa Clara River basin and its agrarian way of life. As for Ahmanson Ranch, officials in L.A. County say that the only access is through L.A. County roads and fear even more clogged freeways and streets.
While these development conflicts are about the huge tracts of open space along the Los Angeles/Ventura county line, similar battles have been played out all over Southern California. A decade ago, communities on the Westside like Culver City and Venice, or West Hollywood and Los Angeles fought each other over retail development. A decade from now, some predict, development battles could rage in south Orange County, as newly independent cities fight the county over master-planned projects slated for that region.
The conflict is not limited to retail or residential development. For example, there is the decades-long dispute over expanding Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport. That fight has been going on so long that some communities have switched sides; at one time, the city of Los Angeles opposed the expansion and Burbank supported it, but now L.A. supports the expansion and Burbank opposes it.
But the disputes between local governments occur most frequently with development projects, and, as a rule, the bigger the development, the bigger the dispute. Given the size and scope of master-planned development projects, it is little wonder that an oft-repeated phrase between the local governments involved is, “See you in court.”
“Clearly, the issue here is the fact that a master-planned community impacts a whole region, and not just one small community,” said William Fulton, editor and publisher of the California Planning and Development Report. “The benefits frequently accrue to the district with jurisdiction, but the cost frequently spills over into adjacent areas.”
Right now, Fulton said, the prime pieces of property for master-planned development happen to be along the L.A./Ventura county line.
“What we are seeing here is the emergence of two different philosophies toward growth: In Ventura County, especially with the recent passage of the urban limits initiative, we are seeing more resistance to development. In L.A. County, which has traditionally been pro-growth, we are seeing more development pressures.”
Ahmanson Ranch, Fulton said, is the exception to Ventura County’s slow-growth mentality. That proposal only gained approval after agreements were secured to preserve huge tracts as permanent open space.
The one-sided mindset of jurisdictional battles is best exemplified by two county supervisors on opposite sides of the Ahmanson Ranch/Newhall Ranch debate. Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich voted in favor of Newhall Ranch and vehemently opposes Ahmanson Ranch. Ventura County Supervisor John Flynn voted for Ahmanson Ranch while opposing Newhall Ranch.
“Newhall Ranch is a very large project, the largest in L.A. history, if not the entire state,” Flynn said. “We had no say in the project, even though there will be more negative impacts on Ventura County than on L.A. County. In L.A. County, they cater to the whims of developers, while we have to put up with the results. As elected officials, we on the Ventura County board are responsible to our constituents. But here, we had no say in the project; we weren’t listened to.”
Antonovich’s planning deputy, Dave Vannetta, was no less harsh in his criticism of Ventura County over Ahmanson Ranch.
“We felt that Ventura County blew off our concerns about the traffic impacts and the impacts on our schools. They were going to go ahead and approve the project no matter what we said. In situations like this, where amicable discussions don’t work, it goes into the courts. Sometimes that’s really the only remedy.”
What’s missing from this debate, local planning experts say, is a regional authority that can serve as an impartial arbiter.
“When the agendas of two or more jurisdictions collide on master-planned communities, there is no one to sort that out,” said Mott Smith, editor of The Planning Report. “These are not problems with a specifically pinpointed geographic focus. These are regional problems that need a regional body to decide. There is no sense of what’s good for the region, only what’s good for a local jurisdiction. The debate is on too small a scale.”
This lack of regional focus is hardly new to Southern California; it has been a complaint for decades. In fact, it was the impetus for the formation of the Southern California Association of Governments.
But despite decades of trying with limited experiments like sub-planning regions SCAG has essentially run up against a brick wall.
“The fundamental culture in Southern California is for independence of local jurisdictions,” said Mark Pisano, SCAG’s executive director. “This has been one of our great strengths, because it breeds the entrepreneurial spirit that the region now thrives on. But there must be a balance between independent entities and regional entities, and we are trying to move forward on this.”
One reason for SCAG’s ineffectiveness is that, while it can pass out financial incentives, it has no authority to enforce land-use decisions. One possible solution is to create a regional planning body that does have land-use authority, much like the South Coast Air Quality Management District. Other areas, like Washington state, have tried this concept with bodies called land-use appeals courts, according to Fulton. But, he said, board members there are extremely unpopular and there is some concern that these boards will not survive.
Another approach is to try statewide what Ventura County and some Bay Area counties have done on a regional scale: impose boundaries around urban areas beyond which they cannot grow, thus protecting areas that are now open space or farmland. This concept has come up repeatedly in the state Legislature, but bills have failed each time as builders have opposed it. Without a push from Sacramento, local planning experts believe such a concept has little chance for success in L.A. County, with its pro-growth history.
Another solution, Fulton said, would be for the state to carry out a wholesale overhaul of the local-government finance structure, changing the financial incentives for one jurisdiction to approve a project at another’s expense.
This concept, as applied to retail projects, was approved by voters in a statewide referendum last November. Gov. Gray Davis said during his election campaign that he would look at this issue; however, any restructuring of local-government finances could open up the Pandora’s box of tampering with Proposition 13, the 1978 initiative that capped the increases in property taxes.
In the meantime, while politicians debate the merits of regionalism, another controversial project looms on the horizon. Next month, the 1,711-home Westridge project situated just south of Six Flags Magic Mountain on the west side of Interstate 5 is slated to come before the L.A. County Board of Supervisors. The city of Santa Clarita has already expressed concerns over traffic, and officials from that city are expected to do so again at the hearing.
