New Council Will Push Slow-Growth Policies : Government: The proposed $170-million Sandstone Canyon development, which calls for 200 luxury homes and a 30-acre commercial center, appears doomed.

DIAMOND BAR —  After clamoring for the City Council’s attention for more than a year, a group of zealous and indefatigable residents fighting to maintain “country living” in Diamond Bar now have their foot in the door at City Hall.

Next month, three candidates they supported will be sworn in on the five-member council. And when that happens, both sides of the development issue say, things will not be the same in the city.

“I’m ecstatic, I couldn’t have done better if I’d gone to Vegas,” Don Schad, one of the activists, said after the Nov. 2 election. “This election means there is hope for preservation of trees, hillsides, natural streams.”

“I understand it’s a no-growth policy for the next four years,” lamented Maria Ochsner, executive director of the local Chamber of Commerce.

Development is likely to slow dramatically with the reelection of incumbent Gary Werner, who has often cast the lone dissenting vote on the current council, and the election of newcomers Eileen Ansari and Clair Harmony.

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The biggest project on the drawing board, planned for the city’s largest untouched canyon, now appears doomed as designed. Each of the three candidates who won election earlier this month opposes the $170-million Sandstone Canyon development, which calls for 200 luxury homes and a 30-acre commercial center in an area now considered by some residents as an oasis in suburbia.

City officials say the development could provide revenue that would help the city avoid a utility tax. But homeowners counter that the city ought to fight to protect one of its largest chunks of open space.

Werner, Ansari and Harmony all say the proposed development for Sandstone Canyon does not preserve enough open space.

“I’m not in favor of (the project)--I don’t think it’s a ‘go’ now,” said Ansari, a community volunteer who was the only woman among the 11 candidates on the recent ballot.

“Our critics say we’re ‘no growth,’ but we have all expressed interest and desire to move ahead with growth that will not diminish the lifestyle we’re used to here,” Werner said.

Preserving the town’s rural feel is the new council majority’s top priority. Members have pledged to revive a citizen panel to advise them on how to revise the 4-year-old city’s General Plan. In the past, the new council members say, officials ignored residents’ views, especially their efforts to revise the plan to preserve large chunks of open space in Sandstone Canyon and nearby Tonner Canyon. The plan is a statement of the city’s goals for development.

Many residents who seek more limits on development live near Sandstone Canyon. They have rallied around a group called Citizens to Protect Country Living that endorsed Werner, Ansari and Harmony.

These community and environmental activists have fought City Hall in court repeatedly over the past year in an effort to nullify the General Plan, saying it favors developers. Twice, they held signature drives to force a referendum on the matter, but even after the council revised it, residents protested that the plan’s environmental protections did not go far enough.

Some current council members say the plan does all that is economically practical and legally possible to limit development and preserve open space without infringing on property rights.

Outgoing council members John Forbing and Dexter MacBride, who lost reelection bids, had maintained during their campaigns that the revised General Plan was a good one and did not need any more work. Already, they argued, the city has spent more than $500,000 on revisions. Forbing says he believes that their support of the plan cost him and MacBride their council posts.

In addition to changing the General Plan, Werner, Ansari and Harmony said they will begin to make City Hall more accessible to residents.

“There are some physical gates to City Hall that we need to tear down,” said Harmony, who owns his own finance company. “We’re even thinking of conducting tours.”

Werner said that, when the new council is sworn in, probably on Dec. 7, residents can expect to see “a more friendly City Council.”

“I hope this is a new beginning for Diamond Bar,” Ansari said. “I hope we’ll be able to heal the rifts that have divided this city.”