SAYING NEIGH TO SPRAWL RIDERS FIGHT TO KEEP HORSE ACREAGE.

Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer

Just a block from the fast-food joints and mini-malls that flank busy Topanga Canyon Boulevard, the pavement turns to dirt, neon signs yield to oak trees and the din of car engines is drowned out by the sounds of horses stamping and snorting in their corrals.

In this little corner of Chatsworth - and in similar pockets in Lake View Terrace, Shadow Hills and La Tuna Canyon - residents call their homes ranches and feed stores are more common than grocery stores.

``There's really not much of this kind of property left, where you can live in the country and work in the city,'' said Jan Evanson, a 14-year Chatsworth resident who moved there for the red rock, the giant trees and the horses.

``Once you take places like Chatsworth out, there's no western culture left.''

And that's why she and other horse lovers are fighting so hard to keep developers and city planners from subdividing the few remaining squares of wild West left in the second-largest city in the nation.

It's not easy now - and it's not going to get any easier in the years ahead.

Some 6 million people are expected to move to or be born in Southern California by 2025. Large parcels, vacant lots and open space are increasingly eyed for houses, jeopardizing the estimated 10 square miles of parcels zoned in the San Fernando Valley for residential horse-keeping.

Many of the folks fighting to preserve horse-keeping see themselves as protectors of the San Fernando Valley's western roots, its cowboys and ranches, its dirt and sagebrush.

Few full-time cowboys remain.

Instead, most folks are urban riders who rush home from the office and head into the hills on horseback, catching a glimpse of commuters still stuck on the freeway before they cross over a ridge into open country.

That's the case with Jose Mendoza, who on a recent Wednesday night sat astride his quarter horse in a dirt riding ring on the fringe of the Hansen Dam Recreation Area. The sun was down and he would soon have to load his horses back into their trailer to drive home to Arleta.

His house is built in an equestrian-zoned neighborhood and his horses spend their days in his backyard. But to ride, he has to travel. The trails around his house have become unusable as tract homes, apartments and shopping centers were built on large lots and open spaces.

Horse owners point to Arleta as an example of what was lost and what they are fighting to preserve. What good is having a house zoned for horse-keeping if you can't ride in your neighborhood?

So two to three nights a week, Mendoza drives to the park where he and his 7-year-old son, Jose, can ride.

``It's kind of expensive to have a horse. You've got to make money,'' he said as he stilled his horse and chatted with a friend while his boy and his mount trotted nearby.

Basic expenses can cost a couple hundred dollars a month, but to a rider, the expense is worth it. When Mendoza rides through the dirt and sagebrush along the Tujunga Wash, it's just like he was home in Mexico. He wants his son to know that feeling.

``I want him to be a real Mexican,'' he said. ``I don't want him to be a cholo (a gang-banger). I want him to be a charro (a cowboy).''

Mendoza echoes the sentiments of other parents living in horse country, who hope their children will develop a passion for riding and caring for the animals - and avoid drugs, crime or teen pregnancy. Cleaning a corral really builds character, they joke. And caring for an animal nurtures patience and compassion.

``It does teach them more responsibility. You want to go to the mall? Not until you shovel manure and fix the fence,'' said Heidi Paul, whose two children are now young adults.

Heidi Paul and her husband Bart live in an old ranch house in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. Their horses are penned in old wooden corrals in the backyard. Chairs and ropes are scattered around the yard and a steer skull is hung from the side of the stable. It's the kind of street where friends ride their horses up to the back door and neighbors out for an evening trot stop to chat in the middle of the road.

Rural living and raising animals binds people together, Bart Paul said. Your business is their business. They watch your horse, your pets, your kids.

``I've lived in Westwood, Hermosa Beach and Burbank, and they were nothing like this,'' Bart Paul said of his Lake View Terrace neighborhood.

It's the horses that make the difference, he said. That's why neighbors consider every piece of equestrian property, every zone change and every proposed subdivision a threat to their lifestyle.

Take Chatsworth, where Jan Evanson and her neighbors are fighting a proposed subdivision that would back up against horse properties. They say the tightly packed single-family homes won't meld with the equestrian neighborhood, and that could cause problems later when urban families move into their rural neighborhood.

``I'm sure the people who buy their first home with their little square backyard are going to want to have their barbecues and not have to deal with the dust and the flies,'' said Barbara Baker, who owns a stable behind the proposed development.

But there are other battles, too.

In Lake View Terrace, residents want the city to preserve the open space and horse trails in the nearby Hansen Dam Recreation Area.

In Shadow Hills, residents are fighting to keep lots large and horse-keeping entitlements intact, whether homeowners have horses or not. Currently a property owners can lose their right to keep horses on equestrian-zoned land if they don't keep a licensed horse on the property.

Horse owners have gotten the ear of Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, who recently introduced four motions to improve safety for riders and address inconsistencies in horse-keeping regulations.

``It really is a culture,'' she said. ``Once you take away that open space and some of those unique characteristics in the city, you can't get them back.''

Yet the pressure to fill in that open space is there. There's a shortage of affordable housing and an increasing resistance to building far-flung new developments on the edges of the city. At the same time, many people want soccer fields, grassy parks and shopping centers - all of which chip away at the rural atmosphere and equestrian lifestyle.

``There's lots of Los Angeles that is still low-density. At the same time, we have to provide housing for people who come into the area,'' Deputy Planning Director Robert Sutton said.

The city is developing special equestrian districts to protect horse-keeping rights, he said, and has a request to create such an area in Chatsworth.

Evanson said she and her neighbors are trying to show political leaders the value in their rural lifestyle so they, too, will want to preserve it.

``It's like living in an old, turn-of-the century town right here in the city,'' she said. ``If they take away one horse- keeping property from us, it's the beginning of the end - and then we're sunk.''

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Many horse owners use the public riding rink at Orcas Park in Sunland, a community that has retained much of its cowboy charm.

(2 -- color) Lauren Crivier takes her horse around her family's property in Chatsworth.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer