Attorney Worked Both Sides of Growth Issue

An attorney who helped write a slow-growth measure approved by Moorpark voters last November was later hired by a developer to find a loophole in the law that would exempt an unfinished housing project.

The developer, Urban West Communities of Santa Monica, has applied for an exemption based on research done by James Longtin, a Westlake Village attorney who was hired by the Citizens Committee for Managed Growth to draft the original initiative last summer, a company spokesman said.

The firm’s request is the first challenge to Moorpark’s Measure F, the law that limits new-home building permits to 250 a year.

“Jim is very knowledgeable in the area, and we felt he was the best person around to see how the law applied to us,” Urban West spokesman Tom Zanic said.

May File Complaint

Bob Crockford, head of the Citizens Committee, said he is considering filing a complaint against Longtin with the state Bar association. He said he wrote Longtin a letter asking him to turn down the Urban West request.

“I don’t object to any attorney arguing both sides of an issue, but it causes a great deal of concern that an attorney would represent both sides of the same case,” Crockford said.

Longtin said he had sent Crockford a letter asking if the committee had any objections to him doing work for Urban West. But, because of a delay in the mail, Longtin did not receive Crockford’s reply until several weeks after it was sent, he said.

“My opinion was that it was not a conflict because I was not divulging any confidential information,” Longtin said. “But they did object, so I withdrew, and I am no longer representing anybody at Urban West.”

3- to 4-Year Delay Seen

Longtin will probably not be hired for any other legal action in the case, Zanic said. Urban West, which is building the 2,500-unit Mountain Meadows development, has completed about 760 homes and begun construction on another 700, Zanic said. But the new law would delay for three to four years the construction of the other 1,000 homes planned for the development, he said.

Delays in the project, which had been planned for completion in 1992, could cost the firm as much as $9 million, Zanic said.

In an April 15 letter to the city, Urban West representatives said the law did not apply to the Mountain Meadows development because it had been approved by county officials in 1981, two years before Moorpark incorporated. Besides, they said, the developer’s plans were made part of the city’s General Plan, a long-range planning document not affected by the passage of Measure F.

‘Implied Agreement’

“I guess that someone will have to decide which plan prevails,” Zanic said. The firm also had an “implied agreement” with the city to finish its project on time, he said.

But Moorpark city officials say the new law applies to all builders in the city.

“I don’t think that their reasons have any legal merit,” said City Councilman Clint Harper, a strong advocate of the growth-limiting measure.

The City Council has not acted on Urban West’s request for exemption since it was received two months ago and is not likely to consider the matter in the future, Harper said.