DEVELOPER POISED FOR LAND FIGHT\Newhall Co.'s annexation plan would cost Castaic district millions.

Byline: James J. Rodriguez Daily News Staff Writer

Newhall Land and Farming Co. has fired the first salvo in what could be a fierce battle to transfer land it owns from the Castaic school district to the Newhall school system, officials said Tuesday.

If the developer is successful, the transfer of about 2,400 acres of its planned 25,000-home Newhall Ranch project would cost the Castaic Union School District millions of dollars in developer fees, property taxes and state money allocated for attendance.

"The township and the school boundaries have been the same," school board member Irene Massey said. "We are going to do battle, I guess. It's sad. But we will fight tooth and nail, and it may be till the bitter end."

And Castaic school officials say the annexation could also kill efforts to some day expand to include high school. The K-8 district had been banking on the projected 2,000 students from Newhall Ranch to help them justify creating a unified district.

The request has angered Castaic officials, who said they have been left in the dark about negotiations between Newhall Land and the Newhall School District. Newhall Land owns the property and is trying to ensure that children in the planned development live in one elementary school district.

"I'm kind of confused," added board member Tom Caesar. "I don't know why they couldn't come to us and explain their intentions and reasonings. In my opinion, I can only construe this as a hostile takeover. If they are doing it for the betterment of the community, why aren't they up front about it. That's the part that scares me."

On Feb. 14, Newhall Land asked the Los Angeles Office of Education to consider annexing Castaic's territory into the Newhall School District.

Castaic school board member Lester Freeman called the proposed transfer racist. Freeman noted that a planned neighborhood of pricey estates would be transferred to Newhall while low-income minority neighborhoods that border Newhall Ranch would remain in Castaic.

Freeman said the annexation proposal left out areas like Val Verde, a mobile-home park and other areas where migrant workers live.

"They completely have eliminated the lower income families and minorities in our district," Freeman said. "It's completely racist. They want to make it so that their executive homes are not in our district. They want to make it an elitist district. For real estate purposes, it sells homes."

But Jim Harter, executive vice president of the Newhall Ranch Co., a division of Newhall Land, said the company owns the land and has a right to request a transfer of boundaries. Only undeveloped property is included in the transfer, thus Val Verde and other nearby communities were left out, he said.

The annexation proposal is an attempt to bring educational uniformity to families and students who will move into the Newhall Ranch planned community, he said. Currently, Castaic educates pupils from kindergarten to eighth grade and Newhall school's students from kindergarten to sixth grade.

In his letter to the county, Harter wrote: "The William S. Hart Union High School District provides 7-12 grade education for the Newhall School District area but 9-12 for the Castaic Union School District area. This current organization of districts would provide a confusing and disjointed array of educational services and policies."

Harter said that by having one school district provide elementary education for the entire project and one district provide junior and high school education will help "unify the community and provide a central core beginning for all students."

Harter said his company had no intention of trying to beat Castaic School District to the punch when it came to unification plans.

"If they want to unify, we support unification," Harter said. "But we don't support unification with our parcel."

It remains to be seen what position the Newhall School District will take on the matter. According to board President Susan Edwards, "The board truly hasn't talked about it as a whole. I would like to do what is best for the children. That has yet to be determined."

But of concern to Newhall school officials is an agreement worked out last year with Newhall Land. Under the $60 million pact, the developer agreed to provide the land and money to finance construction of at least six new Newhall District schools.

The agreement was hammered out after the Newhall School District threatened to block the development and sue the county and developer if projected student overcrowding wasn't addressed.

In the agreement was a clause that called for the Newhall School District to negotiate with the Castaic school district to annex parcels within the development so that children could attend neighborhood schools.

To date, no negotiations between the two school districts have taken place.

Nonetheless, the county Office of Education's committee on school district organization will ultimately decide whether the proposal should go before the voters. Providing Newhall Land follows procedures and files appropriate paperwork, that decision isn't expected for at least six months, said Marc Forgy, secretary to the county committee.

Newhall Ranch covers 12,000 acres, 80 percent of which is in the Newhall District's and 20 percent - or roughly 2,400 acres - in Castaic.

Castaic school officials can't prevent the developer from going ahead with the transfer, but they may voice their opposition during the public hearings on the annexation, Forgy said.

"They really can't prevent it from going through," Forgy said. "There is a statute that allows the landowner from going ahead with a petition (to annex). And that's what they are doing."

But the process will include at least two public hearings and a voluminous amount of studying and paperwork.

"We are going to be soliciting a lot of information from all the school districts," he said. "Hopefully (Castaic) will be able to indicate any issues or concerns they might have."