SAVE OPEN SPACE FILES SUIT TO HALT BIG DEVELOPMENT.

Byline: Lisa Mascaro Daily News Staff Writer

Foes of the Ahmanson Ranch development just inside the eastern Ventura County line have filed another lawsuit, this one claiming a key land transfer required for the project should be invalidated.

Filed in Ventura County Superior Court by the environmental group Save Open Space, the suit claims the Ahmanson Land Co. improperly retained the water rights when it transferred thousands of acres of open space to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

``Withholding the water rights on a permanent basis was never discussed in the original (proposal),'' said Save Open Space attorney Rosemary Woodlock. ``It doesn't talk about what we do in a five-year drought.''

However, a spokesman for Washington Mutual, the parent company of Ahmanson, said securing the water rights had long been included in the project proposal, and that the lawsuit raised issues that have already been resolved.

``There are no new issues being surfaced that have not surfaced in the past, and we feel they are without merit,'' spokesman Adrian Rodriguez said.

The suit - filed last week against the Ventura County Board of Supervisors and the company - is the environmental group's third as it tries to halt construction of the 3,050-home project.

The project, approved by the supervisors in 1992, would bring houses, schools, a hotel, parks and two golf courses to the area.

At issue are wells, a reservoir and easement pipelines beneath more than 7,600 acres of open space that were transferred to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy last year. The company had been required to set aside land for open space preservation.

The lawsuit charges that water beneath the property was to be transferred along with the land, and that failure to do so invalidates the transfer. The suit further said that the environmental review failed to address the issue.

However, both the company and the conservancy said the agreement approved by the supervisors allows water rights to stay in the hands of Ahmanson.

Laurie Collins, staff counsel for the conservancy, said even stricter restrictions on water use were negotiated between the agency and the company when the transfer agreements were drawn up.

She said the issue centers on one well beneath land on the Ahmanson Open Space parcel, which the company wants to drill to irrigate a golf course. She said the agreement reached with the company requires that studies be done to determine how much water the company can take without harming the parkland.

``We put additional restrictions on them because we were concerned because of how much water they could take out of that well and the health of the park,'' said Collins.