Statement from Tejon Ranch Co. Regarding Lawsuit Filed against Los Angeles County over Approval of Specific Plan for Centenni...
May 28 2019 - 5:45PM
Business Wire
The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), an extremist
environmental organization headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, has,
as expected, announced it has filed a legal challenge over Los
Angeles County’s approval of the specific plan for Centennial at
Tejon Ranch, a master planned mixed use residential community.
Centennial is part of the overall Tejon Ranch master
conservation and land use plan, an agreement Tejon Ranch Co.
successfully negotiated with respected environmental organizations
such as Audubon California, Endangered Habitats League, Natural
Resources Defense Council, Planning and Conservation League, and
the Sierra Club. As required by this plan, 90% of the Ranch’s
270,000 acres will be permanently conserved, with the remaining 10%
reserved for development in areas with both existing infrastructure
and lower resource values—as determined by leading scientific
experts.
Centennial will be built in one of those lower-resource-value
areas and the site is already zoned for residential and commercial
development as part of the Antelope Valley Plan approved by the Los
Angeles County Board of Supervisors in 2015.
Notably, CBD sued Los Angeles County to overturn the approval of
the Antelope Valley Plan but lost at both the superior and
appellate court level. To sue again over the same issues is
unconscionable and a waste of taxpayer dollars.
To stand in the way of an approved development that will bring
thousands of much-needed price-attainable homes to Southern
California families who are struggling to find housing they can
afford is yet one more stark example of CBD’s
“my-way-or-the-highway” mentality.
CBD’s intransigence is not surprising. It participated in the
negotiations that led to the historic Tejon Ranch Conservation
& Land Use Agreement that permanently conserves 90% of Tejon
Ranch—240,000 acres, only to, after participating in the
negotiations for more than a year, walk away from the table just
before the agreement was reached.
It's worth noting that all the participants in the negotiations
indicated in advance that the outcome of negotiations would result
in some real estate development on Tejon Ranch, and it was
representatives from CBD who proposed the 90% conservation--10%
development ratio. Now, CBD says it’s opposed to conservation
agreements. Clearly, CBD would rather retain the opportunity to sue
(and presumably collect attorney’s fees on the chance it was to
prevail) rather than compromising to achieve a guaranteed positive
conservation outcome.
It's clear that this latest lawsuit by CBD is simply another
blatant attempt to delay development of Centennial, which has
already been subject to four environmental impact reports: two as
part of its inclusion in the Southern California Association of
Government’s Sustainable Community Strategies, another as part of
the Antelope Valley Area Plan, which was litigated and upheld
twice, and the latest with the approval of the specific plan.
For CBD to raise the issue of wildfires, as it did during the
Centennial hearings and in their complaint, exposes CBD’s
hypocrisy. CBD opposed Governor Newsom’s emergency declaration
streamlining 35 wildfire mitigation projects that would help
protect 2.2 million Californians in over 200 communities from
future wildfires, claiming it would undercut environmental
protections. CBD said the best measure to protect homes against
wildfire isn’t thin forests and remove dead and dying brush from
nearby at-risk communities, but to retrofit houses to current
building standards and create defensible space around them.
But the prescription that CBD claims is the best defense against
wildfire is exactly the plan called for in Centennial. Though, at
Centennial, instead of needing to retrofit homes, houses and other
buildings will be constructed from the very beginning based on the
most stringent fire codes and building standards in place at the
time. These plans have been reviewed and approved by all
appropriate State and County Fire authorities. The defensible space
standards at Centennial also far exceed state requirements.
The tactics employed by the extremists at CBD to litigate, delay
and obstruct, are a significant contributing factor to the housing
crisis in California. After all, the co-founder of CBD, Kieran
Suckling, has stated that a primary goal of the organization is to
inflict severe economic pain. As CBD pursues its agenda, that
economic pain is ultimately being felt by countless numbers of
Californians who find adequate housing increasingly unavailable and
unaffordable.
For the reasons stated above, and more, we believe the lawsuit
is completely without merit, and as we have with the seven prior
legal actions CBD has filed in an attempt to prevent us from doing
our part to help Governor Newsom achieve his goal of the building
the housing needed to solve California’s housing crisis, we will
work with Los Angeles County to vigorously defend ourselves in this
latest legal action as well.
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Barry Zoeller, Sr. VP, Corporate Communications & Investor
Relations(661) 663-4212bzoeller@tejonranch.com
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