Group Seeks Precedent in Westridge Suit : Development: Naturalists hope to preserve the county’s Significant Ecological Areas system by altering a project west of the Golden State Freeway.

In trying to protect their majestic oaks and savanna grasses, a group of Santa Clarita Valley naturalists hopes to win tighter rules to preserve all the sensitive environments in Los Angeles County.

Through its lawsuit against the county and the Newhall Land & Farming Co., the Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment believes that it ultimately can preserve what many naturalists see as the county’s oft-abused system of Significant Ecological Areas, commonly called SEAs.

“Should we win, other groups will look twice before developing on their SEAs,” said Michael Kotch, president of SCOPE. “If we lose, some will think the door is wide open to have development in SEAs because the county will let you do it.”

At issue is the form taken by the proposed Westridge project, a piece in the Valencia master-planned community jigsaw puzzle near Santa Clarita. The 799-acre development includes 1,890 residential units and an 18-hole championship-quality golf course. The project would swallow up the 310 acres of rolling hills of tall grasses, savanna and the county’s only stand of valley oaks. The environmental group took legal action in the hope of altering the project to diminish its impact on the SEA.

Newhall Land officials dismiss the lawsuit as frivolous and downplay its significance. “In no way will it set a precedent,” said Marlee Lauffer, a company spokeswoman.

The lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial June 15.

There are 61 SEAs of varying sizes sprinkled throughout the county, from the Tehachapi foothills to the Malibu coastline to canyons in the San Gabriel Mountains. The terrain is just as diverse, from mountains to grassy plains to streams.

Development is not banned in SEAs, but they are officially recognized as having ecological value that merit protection and careful planning.

The Westridge development, environmentalists say, would kill the Valencia SEA, and the county’s own committee of biologists set up to monitor SEAs agrees.

“It’s an absolute misinterpretation of what the SEAs are meant to establish for the public,” said Tim Thomas, a member of the advisory committee and a botanist with the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “It’s no longer a viable SEA with the golf course and the development pattern in it. There’s no way that it’s legitimate as an SEA.”

SCOPE’s lawsuit alleges that in approving Westridge the county violated its General Plan and ignored parts of the California Environmental Quality Act.

Should SCOPE successfully challenge the county’s approval of Westridge--and that challenge be upheld on appeal--a legal precedent would be set that could affect the management of SEAs in general, said Susan Durbin, SCOPE’s attorney.

The suit also alleges that the county circumvented the General Plan’s “development monitoring system,” which was designed to ensure that roads, schools and other public services in high-growth areas keep up with development.

“The General Plan is supposed to be the constitution for development, and it says that SEAs are supposed to be preserved and protected,” Durbin said. “Does the General Plan mean what it says or is it just a lot of empty platitudes that are ignored whenever the supervisors want?”

The county counsel’s office and developers quickly point out that the court-approved General Plan does allow development within SEAs, as long as the development is compatible with the area.

“The Board of Supervisors determined that Westridge was compatible given the overall merits of the project,” said Richard Weiss, a deputy county counsel working on the lawsuit.

Determining the compatibility of a development with its surrounding area “is a value question,” Weiss said.

But the environmentalists and the county differ over more than such vague terms as compatibility . They can’t even come to terms on the most basic elements of how Westridge would affect the SEA’s environment.

For example, Newhall Land says the project would preserve 80% of the SEA as open space. “It’s just open space, natural area,” Lauffer said. “We won’t be doing anything to it.”

Not so, countered SCOPE member Lynne Plambeck. The project would leave a mere third of the SEA as natural open space, she said.

What the developers count as open space, but environmentalists don’t, includes 26 acres of graded hillsides, 58 acres of islands of untouched savanna and trees amid the golf course and 28 acres of the golf course itself.

Environmentalists complain that the islands of undisturbed land are not contiguous and thus do not help preserve the SEA, since wildlife needs an unbroken stretch of land on which to live.

While some of the natural open space lies within the golf course, Lauffer said, the areas are sufficiently large to support the trees as well as wildlife.

Durbin uses the analogy of a freeway dividing a neighborhood.

“You may have houses on one side or the other of the freeway, but you no longer have an intact community,” Durbin said. “Under the Westridge project, there’s no longer a viable ecological area. You have tree museums instead, and eventually, they all die out.”

The environmental review of the project produced by the county Regional Planning Department found that the Westridge project would have “a significant impact on the biotic resources” of the SEA.

Still, the Regional Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors approved the plan, citing the developer’s efforts to limit the impact on the area’s highly valued oak trees, as well as “overriding considerations” that made the project an asset to the area.

In approving the project, the county cited the “greatly needed . . . challenging, aesthetically pleasing golf course . . . visible from the I-5 with a high potential for public awareness.”

The Statement of Overriding Considerations also cites the project’s provision of “quality housing and nearby commercial uses,” the golf course’s use of reclaimed water, property tax revenues that would be generated, an estimated $8.5 million in school fees from the development, extensive road improvements and fees for sewer, water and fire facilities.

“It’s a complete joke,” said Plambeck, adding that her group does not want to block development on the SEA, but instead wants it to be more compatible with the area. “You don’t destroy something that’s been agreed to through the planning process as significant just to satisfy people who play golf.”

Moreover, many of the amenities or fees cited as benefits of the development, such as the school fees, would have to be provided no matter where the project is built, Plambeck said. They should not be considered special features that would justify the destruction of the SEA, she said.

The developers of the project said they have gone to great pains to be environmentally sensitive, revising the project several times to preserve 88% of the 1,100 oak trees, replace 152 oaks on a 2-to-1 basis and transplant 49 others.

Newhall Land also agreed to restore the savanna grasses and establish a nature interpretive center. Even Lauffer concedes, however, that other areas have had only marginal success transplanting oak trees.

Lauffer also pointed to support in Santa Clarita for the golf course, which would remain open to the public for at least 10 years and until another championship-quality public golf course is built in the area.

Westridge Project

The 799-acre Westridge project, with its championship golf course and 1,890 housing units, would encompass virtually the entire 310 acres that make up the Valley Oaks Savannah Significant Ecological Area in Valencia. Some development is allowed in the county-designated SEAs, but critics argue the proposed project is not compatible with the area.