By Miranda Boos
Staff Writer
A new community may begin to take shape at the southeastern edge of Ventura County, a model community that could change the way Southern California grows.
Completion of the new Ahman-son Ranch development will not come too soon for Ventura County as it will put quality housing in an area of great shortage.
California has been gripped by an intensifying housing crisis for more than a decade, and in some respects, Ventura County and the surrounding area are the bases of the problem. Through the 1990s, the housing supply was nowhere near the demand, resulting in skyrocketing home prices. Unfortunately, teachers, service workers, firemen and police, people who’s jobs are critical to the community’s functioning, have been unable to spend ever-higher portions of their income on a place to live.
With prices for homes in Malibu averaging $1.3 to $1.5 million, professors at Pepperdine face this same problem.
“The chief scare for new faculty and staff is the housing prices,” said Dr. Don Shores, a communication professor. “It is a big factor for newcomers.”
Los Angeles County’s population is expected to grow by more than 115,000 residents over the next 10 years, requiring 38,000 homes to be built during that period.
“The Ahmanson Ranch community will be an asset to Southern California and help meet our critical housing needs,” said Guy Gniadek, president of the Ahmanson Land Company.
Although it won’t solve Calif-ornia’s housing problems, this new 2,800-acre site will include 3,050 units — apartments, condominiums, town homes, single-family homes, as well as estate-sized lots — that 8,400 people will call home.
The opposition, however, sees the thought of more than 8,000 people as a step back for the surrounding area, estimating that the additional traffic could add 46,000 vehicles per day on the already crowded freeways in the area and more than 840 tons of smog a year.
Yet plans for the Ahmanson Ranch show homes clustered within a 10-minute walk or bike ride to key components of daily life, thus reducing the need for car travel. The area is also designed to use half the energy, half the irrigation water and produce half as much waste as traditional suburban communities of comparable size.
Nevertheless, the Ahmanson Land Company has been attacked by those who feel the project is damaging the environment. In fact, since the project was approved in 1992, it has been the subject of 14 lawsuits. The Ahmanson Ranch area is the only known habitat of the San Fernando Valley spineflower, which was believed to be extinct for decades. It is also a habitat for the red-legged frog, an animal recently added to the federal endangered species list. In addition, many are upset at the fact that several ancient oak trees must be destroyed in order to connect this area to the surrounding communities.
The Ahmanson Land Company, however, proclaims that five new trees will be replanted for every one destroyed.
“What they don’t tell you is that the trees are centuries old and will be replaced by small saplings,” said a representative for an environmental organization called The Santa Monica Mountains, which protects open space.
The courts, however, have repeatedly ruled in favor of the development and have upheld the Ahmanson Ranch project as being consistent with all California environmental laws and regulations.
The project has also gained significant recognition for its conservation efforts, which show that natural resource protection can be an integral part of the planning process, and it has received the Building Industry Association’s Best New Town Plan Award in 1993 and the American Planning Association’s Comprehensive Planning Award in 1995.
“We have created a model of smart growth that balances the preservation of natural resources with the needs of people,” Gniadek said.
The Ahmanson Land Company hopes to break ground in 2003 and complete the community in 2010. Construction is estimated to cost $2 billion, including more than $14 million spent for intersection and non-freeway thoroughfares in the area.
Plans for the compact village-style community call for it to be built in four phases, and when finished, the town will be characterized by a wide range of housing opportunities aimed at people with a wide range of incomes. By basing housing costs on the employment opportunities that the project is expected to generate, the Ahmanson Ranch community promises to be different than any of its kind.
The architectural style will draw from early California missions and ranches and will stress colors that blend with the natural terrain surrounding the community.
Plans for the community’s main commercial and civic focus have a village center designed in an historic “Main Street” fashion, creating community character, encouraging both day and evening activities and providing residents and visitors with goods, services, restaurants, theater and specialty shopping. The space above the retail shops is planned to accommodate small, medium and large office space as well as residential units in a plan to promote diversity within the center and encourage pedestrian activity.
The center is also designed to include a hotel containing 300 overnight accommodations and a “village green” that will serve as a central park. Ahmanson Ranch will be a complete community, including a Ventura County Sheriff’s station, a fire station, two public schools, a town hall and a library.
Nearly half the Ahmanson Ranch development area will be comprised of community or recreational open space including parks, two golf courses and new trails that will connect outdoor enthusiasts to 150 miles of trails in the surrounding state and federal parklands.
March 21, 2002