Adopt Santa Monicas Plan

The fact that some landowners in the Santa Monica Mountains dislike a new growth plan unveiled last week by Los Angeles County may be the best argument for its adoption. The mountain range that runs between Universal City and the Pacific Ocean deserves the strongest protection possible to preserve a landscape unique in Southern California. But even the best plan is only as good as the bureaucrats and politicians charged with implementing and enforcing it. In the past, they have not taken their stewardship of a precious regional resource seriously enough.

It’s been two decades since the development plan for the Santa Monicas was updated. In the interim, the Board of Supervisors and its appointed commissioners routinely approved housing projects larger than permitted by plans--undermining efforts to preserve the area while developers funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars into campaign coffers. Since 1981, 40% of the subdivision plans filed in the western Santa Monicas have been bigger than county plans allowed.

It was the worst kind of public policy, and the pockets of the mountains, once home to bobcats and mountain lions, are stuffed with traditional suburban-style development. Such building is entirely inconsistent with the efforts of preservation agencies such as the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, founded in 1978 to piece together land for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. The new plan, which is subject to public review and a final vote by the Board of Supervisors, lists environmental preservation as a top priority.

Consequently, planners are calling for only the most modest increases in the amount developers will be allowed to build. The plan tightens loopholes, such as the ability of developers to include streets when calculating allowable densities--enabling them to stuff more houses into a parcel. Abuses like that made the current plan a laughingstock and helped fuel the incorporation campaigns of cities such as Agoura Hills and Calabasas.

Not surprisingly, some developers dislike the proposed plan. They have legitimate fears about their property rights and are wary of plans that might reduce the potential profitability of their land. But it is not government’s responsibility to ensure big bucks for a few private landowners. Most landowners won’t notice a change. Those who do can appeal.

Rad Sutnar, a development consultant who helped prepare the original plan, described the situation like this: “For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. If you reduce growth [in the mountains], you just create another place for it to go.” Exactly. That’s what smart planning is all about. Asphalt and tract homes should not be allowed to ooze freely over the landscape. Growth should be managed, directed to those areas where it is appropriate and limited in those where it is not.