NEWHALL RANCH OPEN SPACE ISSUE RAISES CONCERNS.

Byline: Teresa Jimenez Daily News Staff Writer

Parks and environmental officials questioned Wednesday whether a developer's proposal to earmark 6,000 acres in the Newhall Ranch project as open space is a good-neighbor effort or a clever way of keeping possession of the land.

As part of the development contract, The Newhall Land and Farming Company proposes to give the private, Sacramento-based Center for Natural Lands Management the open space, which includes 4,000 acres in the highlands and 2,000 acres of Santa Clara River area.

Critics at the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission hearing Wednesday said the deal between the two companies allows Newhall Land to retain monetary and decision-making powers over the property.

In addition, should the Sacramento-based Center for Natural Lands Management ever go out of business, the property would return to Newhall Land under the proposed contract, said Carlyle W. Hall Jr., attorney for the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

``We can stand up to Newhall and say your way is not the best way to go,'' Hall said. ``Under these agreements, (Natural Lands Management) can't scratch its forehead without getting Newhall's permission. And the resources are purely coming from Newhall.''

The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and others said they prefer that the land be donated to a public organization to assure that the property would remain accessible and open to the public in the future.

But Marlee Lauffer, spokeswoman for Newhall Land, said her company selected Natural Lands Management because it trusted that the organization had the resources and experience to manage riparian areas.

Lauffer added that if the land ever did revert back to Newhall Land, it is protected by a Los Angeles County easement that guarantees public access.

``The easement guarantees continual public access,'' Lauffer said. ``We identified almost 6,000 acres we wanted to protect and preserve. We looked into how we would manage it and provide public access. Natural Lands Management has managed tens of thousands of acres in California, including Bakersfield, San Diego and Orange County.''

Discussion of the open space management plans dominated the county Regional Planning Commission meeting in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday morning. The commission eventually must decide whether to recommend the Newhall Ranch development contract to the Board of Supervisors.

During Wednesday's meeting, the commission voted to continue the public hearing on the development contract to Oct. 22 but gave no estimate on when a final decision on the project would be made. Newhall Land may have the opportunity to begin its rebuttal of the testimony at the scheduled meeting.

Ultimately planned to include 25,000 homes and 70,000 inhabitants, Newhall Ranch is the largest development of its kind ever to be proposed in Los Angeles County. Construction of the project, west of the Golden State Freeway to the Ventura/Los Angeles county line, would extend over 25 years.

Groundbreaking is set for 2000.

Another concern about the open space component is that Newhall Land has proposed making the 4,000 acres of high country available after either 50 percent of the development is complete or 50 percent of the community neighboring the open space area is complete.

Rick Putnam, speaking as the chairman of the Santa Clarita Valley Recreation and Conservation Authority, said the land should be made available to the public within five years of construction. He added that under the existing proposal, the land might not be open to the public for 15 years.

``One of the selling points of the development is its public benefits, and the 4,000 acres is one of those,'' Putnam said. ``We think that the timing for the donation of open space should coincide with development.''

Lauffer said Newhall Land proposed the time span so that streets could be developed leading to the land and so that side businesses, such as cattle ranching and oil drilling, could be curtailed gradually.

Other concerns about the project ranged from whether developers are taking enough steps to protect open space to whether local school districts and the county library system will receive adequate compensation to provide services to the new residents.

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Map: (Color) LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

The Newhall Ranch project, as proposed by The Newhall Land and Farming Compnay, would include the following features

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