L.A. County May Grow by 5,500 Acres : Developer Seeks to Annex Ventura Land for Housing Project

Predictions that Los Angeles County will grow in 1987 may be accurate in a way that urban planners did not anticipate.

A luxury housing project in Calabasas may cause the county to grow in area, as well as population, for the first time in 137 years.

Home Savings of America has petitioned to remove an 8 1/2-square-mile parcel of ranch land from Ventura County and annex it to Los Angeles County so the land can be developed.

Officials of both counties say they favor the boundary change--which would give Los Angeles County its first new land since 1850. All that is required for the change is the approval of both county boards and the landowner, H.F. Ahmanson & Co., which also owns Home Savings.

The unusual boundary change could clear the way for construction of 3,000 luxury homes, a 3-million-square-foot industrial park, a 200-room hotel and two golf courses on the Ahmanson Ranch, west of Woodland Hills between Bell Canyon and Hidden Hills.

A spokeswoman for the Ahmanson firm confirmed that the change has been proposed, but said company officials familiar with the Calabasas project were unavailable for comment Friday.

The 5,500-acre Ahmanson Ranch is at the southeastern edge of Ventura County, 45 miles from the county seat in Ventura.

Ventura County officials say the rolling, ridge-laced pastureland is too isolated and too large for them to allow urban development there. Ventura County’s 13-year-old master plan requires large subdivisions to be a part of an incorporated city equipped to provide such services as water, sanitation, police and fire protection.

The closest Ventura County city is Simi Valley, separated from the site by a steep mountain range.

On Jan. 20, Home Savings officials plan to ask Ventura County supervisors to waive their policy and change the ranch land’s classification from “open space” to “urban” so the project can proceed.

But, hedging its bets, the company has also petitioned Ventura County to give up the land. At the same time, it has asked officials in Los Angeles County to annex the land.

Joseph M. Eisenhut, the Ventura County planner handling the request, said it is unlikely his county will allow construction while the property is part of Ventura County.

“I have trouble with the proposal to create a new urban area on raw land that is so far removed from county services,” Eisenhut said. “My opinion is it would be easier to get through L.A. County. Here, the Board of Supervisors doesn’t see itself in the urbanization business.”

The supervisors will probably consider the request in March, after the proposal has been studied by county administrators, said Robert Braitman, head of Ventura County’s Local Agency Formation Commission.

If approved, the boundary change would be the second this year for Ventura County, Braitman said. The county, which was created in 1872, shrank slightly on Thursday when a 5,860-acre parcel at the northern edge of the county was annexed by Kern County to allow for a development.

Orange County Creation

Los Angeles County records indicate that present county boundaries have not been changed since 1889, when Orange County was created on land that had been southern Los Angeles County.

“It seems like that project would be a nice asset to Los Angeles County,” said Leeta Pistone, an aide to Los Angeles Supervisor Mike Antonovich, in whose district the land would lie. His office is coordinating a review of the annexation proposal, she said.

“It would provide a good tax base for us and would solve the major problem that Ventura County has with services for the area,” she said, because Los Angeles County already has public services available nearby.

Pistone said the development would also benefit residents of Calabasas and Ventura County’s isolated Bell Canyon residential area by improving traffic access in both areas.

Bell Canyon currently has only one road leading into it, but plans filed by Home Savings with Ventura County call for construction of several new streets in the area, including a southern entrance to Bell Canyon and a looping roadway that would connect Las Virgenes Road at the northern end of Malibu Canyon with Victory Boulevard at the western edge of the San Fernando Valley.