Angry Homeowners Ask Control of Developments

The following is a reprint of a Signal article originally published on March 6, 1987.

They came from different corners of the Los Angeles county, but they had one thing in common — frustration with county planning.

Representatives from homeowners groups in Diamond Bar and Agoura Hills, as well as the Santa Clarita Valley attended yesterday’s planning commission hearing.

The subject was a development monitoring system, requested of the county by Judge Norman Epstein. With the adoption of the system by the county, the judge is expected to conclude a 13-year legal battle between the county and the Coalition for County Planning in the Public Interest.

The system was designed by the Regional Planning Department to ensure that adequate water supplies, school classrooms, fire and police protection and other services will accompany new development. The county says the system has been in place for months and is functioning well.

The residents at yesterday’s meeting had their doubts.

“We don’t think the planning process is working in the Santa Clarita Valley,” said Jan Heidt of the SCV Homeowners Coalition.

“The lag we have in infrastructure is going to be paid for by someone. It’s going to be the last (developer) one in.”

Heidt, in an emotional plea, called for specific standards for infrastructure, such as student/ teacher ratios and fire department response times.

Christine Vicars, who spoke after Heidt, said Heidt had articulated well the feelings of anger and frustration among residents of Agoura Hills, in the far western end of the county.

After the meeting the two exchanged horror stories and phone numbers.

Vicars, who said she drove two hours to attend the hearing, told the commission, “We feel we are not being listened to.

“We face a useless process, knowing our words will strike dead air. People get burned out.”

And Phyllis Papen, of the Diamond Bar Improvement Association (near the Orange County border), expressed similar frustrations.

She supported the coalition in call ing for a court-appointed monitor to watch over the county for a year while it implements the system.

Both residents and coalition representatives asked for a monitor, the removal of a “loophole” in the system and a five-year county plan for infrastructure improvements.

Lisa Foster, an attorney with the

Center for Law in the Public Interest, said a loophole in the system allowing developments to be exempt for “overriding considerations” should be removed.

The requirements for the exemption are “so vague as to be meaningless,” she said.

If the county was concerned about limiting low-income or senior housing projects, it could include specific language to protect those developments, Foster said.

She also called for a five-year capital improvement plan. Rather than “encourage” various improvements, the county should work to guarantee they are built.

Too often, she said, “haphazard planning” results when road and other improvements follow developer priorities.

Sherman Griselle, chairman of the coalition since 1972, was even more strident on the exemption.

“What triggers an ‘overriding’ consideration — a contribution to a member of the Board of Supervisors?” he asked.

If the system were not properly implemented, “it could spawn a whole new series of lawsuits,”

Griselle warned. “Let’s not falter just at the end.”

Rather than simply provide information, the system should be mandatory, he said.

Griselle also objected to the name “development monitoring system”. Calling it “passive,” he asked that it be changed to “Development Management System.”

“To call it a monitoring system denotes weakness and an unwillingness to make decisions.”

But perhaps more telling than the actual testimony on the system was the absence of representatives from the building industry, said Canyon Country resident Allan Cameron after the meeting.

“They don’t seem too worried about it,” he said.

Nor does the county, which is proceeding quickly to approve the system and conclude the lawsuit. The matter was moved ahead on the Board of Supervisors agenda from April to March 26.

After the members of the audience spoke, the commission did not comment on the matter. It will address the monitoring system on Wednesday.