LOS ANGELES (CN) - Five environmental groups claim in Superior Court that one of the biggest residential development projects ever approved in California will permanently damage the Santa Clara River ecosystem.
The Friends of the Santa Clara River and others claim Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and project developer Newhall Land and Farming violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and state planning, zoning and subdivision laws.
The 12,000-acre Landmark Village at Newhall Ranch will house 60,000 people in 1,411 dwelling units - 1,136 of them "multi-family units" - and will have 1 million square feet of mixed commercial uses, according to the complaint. It will also have an elementary school, a 16-acre park, a fire station, and other amenities.
"The project is located adjacent to, and partially within the current floodplain of, the Santa Clara River (the 'River'), the last river in Southern California that is still in a mostly natural state," according to the complaint.
"The project, as currently proposed, would harm the river in very significant ways, and have substantial negative environmental impacts on water quality, on habitat and wildlife movements, and on greenhouse gas emissions, among other impacts."
Joining as plaintiffs are the Santa Clarita Organization for Planning and the Environment, the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Wishtoyo Foundation and its Ventura Coastkeeper Program.
The L.A. County Board of Supervisors approved the general plan for Landmark Village in 2003, but the project was delayed because the original applicant, LandSource Communities, filed for bankruptcy in 2007. After emerging from bankruptcy 3 years later, it submitted a revised version of the environmental impact report in September 2011.
The Board approved the project last week and certified the revised final impact report by 3-0 vote. The project has been around in planning and proposal stages since the 1980s.
The environmental groups claim the county's certification of an environmental impact report violated CEQA.
The Santa Clara River is a popular site for fishing and hiking. Streams twist through thickets of trees, grasslands and sagebrush with the San Gabriel Mountains in the background against an often-smoggy sky.
"The Santa Clara River is in a relatively natural state. In contrast to other major Southern California rivers such as the Los Angeles or San Gabriel, the Santa Clara is not confined by extensive levees, impounded by dams, or lined with concrete," the complaint states.
In 2005 the nonprofit group American Rivers named the Santa Clara "one of the nation's most endangered rivers," due to extensive pollution from chlorides and threats from development projects.
"From an urban planning standpoint, there is no reason to build in the river area," attorney Dean Wallraff, with Advocates for the Environment, told Courthouse News in a telephone interview.
"The project was barely approved, and likely because the county is typically on the side of development. They see revenue, and though there's nothing wrong with that, the problem is that they will be channelizing the river in order to build.
"There are just so many other better places where they could build this project."
Wallraff said the project inevitably will confront water supply problems.
"Their environmental plan calls for pumping groundwater from the alluvial aquifer, which is a finite resource," he said. "There are many inconsistencies with the plan on the analysis of available water.