A Vision Worth Protecting

“Development” has never been a word taken lightly in the far western reaches of Los Angeles County. It is, after all, a region where the cities of Agoura Hills and Calabasas incorporated in large part to wrest land-use control from what many perceived as an overly permissive county bureaucracy. Now, though, the county and the cities of the Las Virgenes area are cooperating on a comprehensive development strategy to guide growth. The effort is a model of cooperative planning and promises to balance the often competing goals of conservation and development.

Southern California cities and counties have a lousy track record when it comes to coordinating regional growth. The tax structure generally rewards short-sighted planning, and most municipal leaders cringe at the notion of surrendering even a small part of their land-use authority to neighboring jurisdictions. Considering that, it’s amazing that the Ventura Freeway Corridor Areawide Plan has gotten as far as it has.

Together with Los Angeles County planners, officials from Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Hidden Hills and Westlake Village have hammered out a vision that recognizes and protects the unique ecological features of the Las Virgenes Valley. As the gateway to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, the valley and surrounding mountains provide one of the last examples of Southern California’s natural beauty.

Some property owners, though, worry that the plan does too much to protect open land by slashing the number of homes that can be built on many lots--particularly those farther away from already developed urban areas. It’s a legitimate fear. Property owners should be able to expect a reasonable return on land they bought as an investment, and planners must tread lightly to ensure no one’s rights get trampled. It’s one thing to reduce the value of property in the name of preservation--say, by reducing the number of houses on a lot from 30 to 10. Courts have said that’s acceptable. It’s quite another to eliminate the value of property--say, by slashing the number of houses on a lot from 300 to 1. Courts generally consider that a taking and force the government to pay up. So far, planners have walked a fine line between the two.

The plan won’t come before the Board of Supervisors for approval until later this year--after many public hearings at which landowners and environmentalists will no doubt square off over how much development is appropriate. A few tweaks here and there are to be expected as the plan moves through the political process, but supervisors should respect the spirit of the project. For the first time in a long time, the county and the cities of Las Virgenes agree on a vision for the future. That alone is something worth protecting.