Neighbors Join to Fight 41-Unit Development

TUJUNGA — Before purchasing their home in the Tujunga hills two years ago, Steve and Candy Crouch investigated the area’s zoning laws. They wanted to be certain that the neighborhood would remain quiet and rural, with lots of wildlife, vegetation and chirping birds.

Behind their 2,300-square-foot home, which sits on three-quarters of an acre, is a ridge with a variety of wild brush, oak and sycamore trees. Deer, snakes, rabbits and coyotes regularly wander through the hills, making it seem as though it’s a world away from the nearby hectic city.

The Crouches want to keep it that way, which is why they’re leading a fight against a developer who wants to level the mountain behind their house to build 41 luxury homes on 55.5 acres of natural open space off La Tuna Canyon Road north of the Foothill Freeway.

Nearly 40 acres would be graded for construction and about 640,000 cubic yards of earth would be moved.

“It would be a travesty,” Steve Crouch said. “It would destroy this area.”

About 150 of his neighbors who share that view have formed Canyon Area Preservation to fight the project.

CAP organized residents in an aggressive campaign to protest the development. Crouch expects at least 30 neighbors to attend a public hearing of a city Planning Commission advisory committee at 10:30 a.m. today at the Sherman Oaks Woman’s Club.

This will be city’s first public hearing on the project proposed by Duke Development, a small Glendale firm that acquired the land in 1989 and has fought ever since to build on it.

At today’s meeting, a panel of eight to 10 representatives from various city departments will hear from members of the public and the developer before making a recommendation to the Planning Commission.

Even if the committee endorses the development, the project would need approval of the Planning Commission, the City Council’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee and City Council before construction could begin.

One city official, who asked not to be named, predicted a lengthy and treacherous process that probably won’t end favorably for the developer.

A city Bureau of Engineering report has already recommended “withholding the project” because, among other things, it would require a variance in the area’s strict zoning law.

The report also concludes that the development could have a negative impact on such environmental issues as plant and animal life, drainage and solid waste disposal.

Duke Development’s biggest obstacle may be a zoning ordinance that the City Council approved in 1991 restricting development on 3,200 acres of steeply sloping land in Sunland, Tujunga, Lake View Terrace and Shadow Hills.

The developer wants to build the 41 single-family homes on a piece of land zoned for nine. The ordinance calls for minimum density development, requiring one to five acres per housing unit.

“We’re not trying to be hard-edged,” said Tujunga resident Chuck Kunze, one of CAP’s organizers. “We’d prefer they didn’t build anything, but if they want to build according to the current zoning laws, that is nine houses. We could live with that.”

But that would not be financially feasible, said Souren Shorvoghlian, part owner of Duke Development.

“If they tell me I can build nine homes, then they’re telling me don’t build anything,” he said. “They know they’re killing the project.”

Shorvoghlian said his company has spent nearly $3 million in the last 10 years fighting the city to build on the land.

In 1992, Duke Development sued the city, claiming the company wasn’t notified of the public hearings regarding the 1991 ordinance that limited construction on the steep slopes. The suit was eventually thrown out.

“If the project doesn’t get approved, I really don’t know what I’m going to do,” Shorvoghlian said. “I have no idea what I’m going to do with the land.”

Councilman Joel Wachs, who represents the area and fought to pass the minimum density ordinance, opposes the development, according to his field deputy, Arline DeSanctis.

“We want to preserve the mountain and we don’t feel this plan does that,” DeSanctis said. “When you cut and fill and add huge retaining walls to an area that is that pristine, you change the whole character of the community.”

Kunze, who has lived a stone’s throw from the proposed development site for six years, considers that an understatement:

“It would be massive destruction of the hillside. Massive!”