In a strongly worded op/ed, the editor of the Ventura County Star calls Los Angeles County an “insatiable colossus” and decries the imminent, no-comments-allowed decision on the first phase of Newhall Land’s Newhall Ranch project, which will be built along the Los Angeles and Ventura county lines west of Santa Clarita.
Joe Howry, the editor of Ventura county’s largest daily, says the Santa Clara River valley is a place of “stunning beauty” in an otherwise “paved-over” Southern California. “Anyone who has driven Highway 126 can’t help but notice the lushness of the land, the variety of the crops, the anomaly of such rural beauty beneath the shadow of the Magic Mountain tower,” he says.
Howry then describes the project, the impressive statistics of which are already familiar to many in Santa Clarita: 21,000 new homes for an estimated 70,000 presumably new people, “not to mention all the businesses and services necessary to support” such a city. Howry says Newhall Ranch would be about the same size as the city of Camarillo.
He also describes Ventura County’s efforts to fight and mitigate the potential effects of the massive project and calls Los Angeles County’s approval process “heavy-handed and perhaps arrogant.”
As has been discussed here on SCVTalk, a decision on Landmark Village, the first phase of Newhall Ranch, was scheduled for December 22, just three days before Christmas. Local environmentalists Lynne Plambeck and Cam Noltemeyer protested the timing of the meeting and LA County’s Regional Planning Commission rescheduled it for January 9.
Howry says Ventura County recently submitted more concerns to Los Angeles County about the project, but hadn’t heard a response until Ventura learned that LA’s planning commission would discuss -and possibly approve- the first phase of the project this week.
He says that Ventura County is asking LA County to delay its decision.
Howry saves his strongest words to describe Newhall Ranch, Los Angeles County, and the meaning of the project:
The story of the Newhall Ranch development and its potential adverse impact on the Santa Clara River Valley is a familiar one in Southern California. It’s the story of L.A. County playing bully, running roughshod in an oblivious sort of way over every other interest to benefit its own. It is the same old mindless approach to growth that blindly ignores issues such as quality of life, preservation of beauty and heritage, neighborliness, and the reality of unintended consequences.
It is a mind-set that has cost Southern California much. Lifestyles have been torn asunder, natural beauty has been plundered and destroyed, and in its place is a dull, soulless metropolis whose only purpose is to serve itself.
So what do you make of this editorial? Are Howry and his readers in Ventura County narrow-minded NIMBYists who already have their stake in the Golden State and don’t want to share it with the millions of people expected to immigrate to this region in the coming decades? Even with the real estate slump of the last 12 months, I’ve only seen reports that the entire region will face/is facing a housing crunch, so perhaps its unfair to expect that even a beautiful place like the Santa Clara River valley will remain un-impacted.
On the other hand, Howry’s editorial calls to mind LA County’s long history of abuse of the rest of the state of California. From the time it pillaged and plundered the Owens Valley of water to the short-sighted way in which it has spread out into one of the largest cities in the world, Los Angeles’ leadership has always taken an ends-justify-the-means approach, and we’re paying for it today.
What do you think?
Newhall Ranch.net website with info on the project