PROSPERO RANCH WINS PLANNERS' OK ENVIRONMENT-CONSCIOUS NEIGHBORS OPPOSE HOME TRACT.

Byline: CHARLES F. BOSTWICK Staff Writer

LANCASTER -- Planning commissioners approved a 105-home housing tract that borders the city's Prime Desert Woodland preserve and is opposed by neighbors, who say it will destroy Joshua trees and other desert habitat that should be saved.

In return for permission to build on the land, developer Fieldstone Lancaster must take a number of environmental measures.

Those include buying 42 acres of desert habitat elsewhere to set aside as a preserve, delaying construction until any burrowing owls on the property have raised their young, and catching and relocating coast horned lizards and a snakelike reptile called the silvery legless lizard, as well as relocating or preserving elsewhere five specimens of a tiny plant called a sagebrush loeflingia.

``We've been keeping that in mind as we've been designing the project,'' project manager Ben Hudson said of the tract's proximity to the city's 102-acre Prime Desert Woodland. ``The environmental impact report was very clear there are no endangered species on the site, but there are some special-status species. What we will do is a series of preconstruction surveys before we actually begin construction.''

The project's environmental impact report and subdivision maps were approved 5-0 by commissioners at a meeting Tuesday night.

Called Prospero Ranch, the development is proposed on 20 acres south of Avenue K-4 -- bordered on the south by the woodland boundary and on its other sides by homes and Nancy Cory School -- and on eight acres sandwiched between existing homes north of Avenue K-4.

Orange County-based Fieldstone, which completed another Lancaster tract in April and is selling homes at a Palmdale development, hopes to have Prospero Ranch model homes ready in late 2008.

But neighbors, who two years ago derailed a previous Planning Commission approval, say the tract will destroy Joshua trees and junipers as good as any inside the Prime Desert Woodland's fence, and fear the new homes could jeopardize the survival of the preserve's plants by altering drainage into the preserve.

Neighbors also said the new homes will add traffic to a street that is already busy with vehicles going to adjoining Nancy Cory School, which was built inside the desert woodland before the city bought the area as a preserve.

Neighbors said they moved there because of the desert habitat and enjoy seeing its rabbits, birds and other creatures.

``We were told no one would build in that area. We feel blindsided by the city to allow this to happen,'' neighbor Bonnie Harris said.

Fieldstone's southern 20 acres were inside the area recommended in the late 1980s for preservation. Five acres of it were once owned by the city, but the city swapped the land for five acres of desert woodland to the south -- without getting permission from Los Angeles County, whose bond measure provided money for the original purchase.

City officials are now talking with county officials over the failure to get the swap approved, Lancaster Parks, Recreation and Arts Director Lyle Norton said.

The tract drew favorable testimony from civic leaders, including Antelope Valley College President Jackie Fisher and former Planning Commissioner Dean Henderson, who said it will fill in vacant land among existing neighborhoods rather than extend the city's outskirts. It also will put in fewer homes than allowed by the zoning, the supporters said.

The 2004 approval of the tract had been overturned by the City Council for preparation of an environmental impact report, following an appeal by the Friends of the Prime Desert Woodland, Sierra Club-Antelope Valley Group and the Lancaster Community Neighborhood Organization.

Neighbors said the environmental report contains flaws, including what they said is a failure to properly analyze what they think would be a diversion of underground water that supplies the preserve's vegetation.

``The EIR is erroneous. It's contradictory,'' neighbor Michael Wilson said.

City officials and the developer said the report adequately covers the criticisms raised by neighbors.

``We feel the document outlines very clearly what the effects of the projects would be,'' Lancaster Planning Director Brian Ludicke said.

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Map:

Proposed Prospero Ranch tract

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