Newhall’s Open Space Plan Locks Out the Public

The enormity of Newhall Land & Farming Co.’s proposed housing mega-project near Magic Mountain is mind-boggling: 95 million cubic yards of grading would be required to carve out Newhall Ranch, a brand new city of 25,000 homes for 75,000 residents. In magnitude, it is the largest single project ever considered by Los Angeles County. Other controversial projects pale in comparison: Porter Ranch and Ahmanson Ranch added together still only would create a housing project equal to one-quarter the size of Newhall Ranch.

Another eye-popping statistic: More than six square miles of open space are proposed to be preserved as mitigation for the negative environmental impacts of the Newhall Ranch project. This would encompass an area as large as Griffith Park and include stunningly beautiful land adjacent to the existing 4,000-acre Santa Clarita Woodlands Park owned and managed by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

Could a beautiful new public wilderness park be the silver lining to this otherwise environmentally disastrous development? Not any time soon, if Newhall Land has its way. At the same time that it proudly touts this open space dedication to justify a General Plan amendment that would convert mountain land into dense residential housing, Newhall Land is taking every step conceivable to ensure that the open space remains privately owned and inaccessible to the public for as long as possible--perhaps forever. The truth is that the current open space proposal is a sham and presents no public benefit at all.

In recent years, it has become standard practice for developers of large projects in open-space areas to agree to preserve some of their land for parkland, and for those dedicated lands to be transferred to an appropriate public agency for stewardship before any development occurs. Ahmanson Land Co., for example, needed to convey 10,000 acres to the conservancy before it could even apply for its first tract map. Soka University will have to transfer 400 acres (of the 600 it owns) for public parkland before requesting a building permit for its expansion. And just down the Golden State Freeway from the Newhall Ranch site, Browning Ferris Industries was required to give more than 500 acres of East Canyon to Los Angeles County for parkland before it could turn one spade of dirt for its expanded Sunshine Canyon Landfill.

In this way, the public benefits of a development can be ensured before the public must endure the burdens. Without having to spend the scarce tax dollars available for park purchases, we are able to be certain that parks and open space will continue to exist, even as our last undeveloped lands fall to the bulldozers.

Newhall Land’s proposed dedication is already connected to publicly owned lands via existing trails. The center of the historic and recently restored oil town of Mentryville is a mere 1,000 feet from the Newhall open space and would be an ideal public trail head and staging area for hikes and horseback rides into the Newhall property. Nonetheless, Newhall Land has spurned suggestions that its open space be transferred to and managed by the conservancy or a related park agency with public oversight and accountability.

Instead, Newhall Land has handpicked the Center for Natural Lands Management Inc., a small, private nonprofit organization that can more easily be bullied into doing Newhall’s bidding, and which has agreed to accept a budget so small that funding would not exist for even one full-time ranger. The center’s only experience in Southern California has been to manage a Metropolitan Water District lake in Riverside County with absolutely no public access and to run the Coachella Valley Preserve, an area east of Palm Springs set aside to protect an endangered lizard, and which has extremely limited public access.

Under the agreement Newhall Land has negotiated with the center, public access over much of the Newhall open space could not begin until at least 15,000 building permits had been issued, many years into the project. Over other portions, no public access would be permitted until and unless every aspect of the development had been built. Newhall Land would retain the right to drill oil, farm and graze the open space indefinitely, raising troubling questions about the condition the land might be in when and if the public ever got to it. This is an extraordinarily sweet deal for Newhall that, if approved by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, would enable Newhall Land to claim credit for the land donation and rid itself of potential liabilities associated with ownership without relinquishing one bit of control over the property.

Working in collaboration with other public park agencies, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy has established a lengthy and successful track record of public stewardship on more than 30,000 acres of public parkland. In addition, the conservancy has demonstrated a strong commitment to public access and enjoyment of the last remaining pieces of undeveloped Southern California. How, then, can serious consideration even be given to an unprecedented proposal that leaves Newhall Land & Farming in charge and the public locked out? Who is asleep at the switch?