ECOLOGICAL DESIGNATION DRAWS FIRE A.V. ECONOMY THREATENED.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

LANCASTER - A proposal to earmark a large portion of the eastern Antelope Valley as a significant ecological area is drawing opposition from Lancaster officials, who contend it will interfere with housing development and with efforts to attract space business.

Biologists hired by Los Angeles County have recommended designating more than 316,000 acres in the Antelope Valley as significant ecological areas in a study being undertaken for an update of the county's general plan.

The recommendation includes a set of planning guidelines that call for limiting home-building to one home every 10 acres.

The proposal is the result of studies updating similar ecological surveys conducted in the 1970s to support the county's general plan update of 1980. In the previous studies, 130,720 acres were designated as significant ecological areas.

In a meeting with Los Angeles County officials, including Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, Lancaster officials complained about the expansion of the designated areas.

``You have boxed us in if it goes the way it is proposed,'' said Lancaster City Manager Jim Gilley.

The city's concern is with the expansion of the designated areas on the Antelope Valley's east side, increasing the land under protection from 81,429 acres to 222,325 acres under the new proposal.

The east side of Lancaster is an area designated for major residential projects, Gilley said.

The county has no authority to impose restrictions on development within city limits, but city officials fear the expanded designation would set ``a benchmark'' they would be pressured to meet.

The expansion of the designated areas would also be problematic in city and state efforts to attract space-related business and the development of a spaceport for future reusable launch vehicles.

The significant ecological designation would bring with it a guideline for the construction of bridges, rather than culverts, over stream beds to protect the linkage of environmentally sensitive areas.

That would add to the expense of providing transport routes for spacecraft trucked between Air Force Plant 42, Edwards Air Force Base, and Harper Dry Lake in San Bernardino County, the site designated by the state as a future spaceport.

The marked expansion of designated areas is the result of revised thinking about how to preserve the areas, which appear as isolated islands in the previous designation maps.

County officials said the new study recommends linking together the much smaller existing ecological areas in order to make it more likely for native plants and animals to survive in diverse communities.

``The biologists feel that islands won't sustain themselves over time,'' said George Malone, supervising regional planner with the county regional planning department.

Malone said the county is still seeking public input on the proposal and that it is not final. A final proposal probably won't be ready for the county board of supervisors' approval until sometime next year.

Countywide, the study by Irvine-based PCR Services Corp., Frank Hovore and Associates, and Forma Systems, recommends expanding the significant ecological areas from 240,567 acres to 576,592 acres. The proposed areas would extend from Catalina Island to the Santa Monica Mountains to the eastern Antelope Valley.

More than half of the proposed acreage, 316,751 acres, is within the Antelope Valley or immediately surrounding area. The plan includes 16,550 acres within the city of Palmdale's boundaries and 3,945 acres within the city of Lancaster.

The county defines a significant ecological area as an ecologically important or fragile land or water area, valuable as habitat for native plants and animals.

In the Antelope Valley, the proposed significant ecological area expansion covers scattered Joshua tree woodlands west of Lancaster, the lakes and hills along the San Andreas Fault from Quail Lake to Barrel Springs, and the Big Rock, Little Rock and Mescal creek washes and the rocky buttes around Lake Los Angeles.

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Map: Proposed Boundaries