Judge: Tejon Ranch project is flawed
Master-planned mixed-use community faces another delay
Developers of the proposed Centennial master-planned mixed-use community on Tejon Ranch will face another delay after Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff ruled in favor of the environmental group Climate Resolve, which argued that the environmental impact report for the proposed project is flawed.
Beckloff found the environmental impact report’s discussion of greenhouse gas emissions flawed based on its reliance on the cap-and-trade program to substantially mitigate emissions. In addition, the report’s reliance fair share rationale for mitigation is flawed because it is based on reduced emissions from the cap-andtrade program.
Beckloff found that since the environmental impact report’s mitigation discussion is flawed, the County improperly adopted a statement of overriding considerations, and the report’s conclusion that wildfire risk impacts outside of the project site will be reduced to less than significant is not supported by any analysis.
Beckloff found that the Tejon Ranch Co. development’s environmental review failed to account for the increased wildfire risk the 12,000acre project would pose to surrounding wildlands.
“The court finds the county failed to proceed as required by law when it did not analyze wildfire impacts beyond the project site,” Beckloff wrote in the 62-page decision dated Monday.
“The Tejon Ranch environmental impact report made false claims that California’s cap-and-trade system somehow satisfied all emissions requirements,” Jonathan Parfrey, executive director of Climate Resolve, said in a statement. “In truth, land development is not covered by the cap-and-trade regime and decarbonization is needed in all sectors, especially the construction and transportation sectors.”
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors gave the final approval to the Centennial specific plan in April 2019.
LA County counsel is reviewing the judge’s ruling and had no comment at this time.
The long-delayed 12,300-plus acre project, first proposed in 2002, would run along Highway 138 west of 275th Street West. The land is part of Tejon Ranch, the largest contiguous piece of private property in California. As designed, the project would contain 19,333 homes, six elementary schools, a high school, up to four fire stations, a sheriff’s station, and buildings totaling more than 10.1 million square feet for stores and industry.
The community’s population would be as large as 57,000 people at full build-out, which is expected to take more than 20 years. More than 5,100 acres of the 12,300 acres will remain as natural grassland or oak woodlands, with hundreds more acres in parks and other open space.
The project has been described by its developers as a model for net-zero energy community by powering the entire community with its own clean, renewable energy, including solar and other future technologies. The project also will be net-zero water.
“Environmental impact reports are extremely lengthy, complex documents, and it’s difficult to get everything perfect the first time out,” Gregory S. Bielli, president and CEO of Tejon Ranch Co., said in a statement. “With the judge’s direction, we will work with LA County to address the few remaining issues, just as we did in Kern County when a court ruled the EIR for our Grapevine community needed additional analysis. The analysis was completed, Grapevine was reapproved, and the court affirmed the additional analysis was correct. We expect the same will be true for Centennial.”
Between 1964 and 2015, 31 wildfires larger than 100 acres occurred within five miles of the site, including four within the proposed project’s boundaries, according to the Center for Biological Diversity, another party whose separate petition was not granted, but nonetheless lauded the judge’s decision.
“The court’s rejection of the Tejon development highlights the danger of building in high fire-risk areas,” Center for Biological Diversity staff attorney J.P. Rose said in a statement.
“The science is clear that developments like Centennial will literally be built to burn and our elected officials can’t continue to downplay these risks through inaccurate environmental reviews. This is a wakeup call for policymakers across California.”
The Center for Biological Diversity estimated the development would add daily 75,000 new vehicle trips daily to region’s already-clogged freeways, undermining California’s climate goals and generating more air pollution. The court’s ruling also found that the county failed to adopt all feasible mitigation measures to reduce the development’s massive greenhouse gas impacts.
The project would also require construction of an $830 million freeway that, together with the development, would block the movement of mountain lions, which are already struggling to maintain genetic diversity because they are hemmed in by existing highways and development, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.
Judge Beckloff, the Tejon Ranch Co. said, denied 20 of the 23 claims raised in two separate environmental lawsuits filed under the California Environmental Quality Act.
“The judge rejected all claims raised by the Center for Biological Diversity and the California Native Plant Society,” the company said. “He also found that certain narrow aspects of the EIR related to the analysis and mitigation of greenhouse gases and off-site fire risk needed further analysis or clarification. In most of the issues related to greenhouse gases and fire risk, including Centennial’s wildfire protection program, the court ruled in favor of Tejon Ranch and Los Angeles County.”
In response, Rose of the Center for Biological Diversity said Friday in a telephone call that the court’s ruling made it clear the violations of state law in the environmental analysis and approval process were so severe it warranted setting aside the project approvals.
In other words, if Tejon Ranch Co. wants to move forward with the project they would need to undergo a new environmental review for the project, Rose said.
“This means that Tejon is going to have to convince the LA County Board of Supervisors that building a new sprawling city on fire-prone wildland is in the interest of the public,” Rose said.
Rose added that will be an uphill battle for the company in part because the make-up of the Board of Supervisors has changed. There area also new policies in the County’s sustainability plan that oppose sprawl and large-scale development in fire zones.
“For the County to now, in 2021 or 2022, to reapprove a project like this would be clearly inconsistent with their own policies in the sustainability plan,” Rose said.