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By Mike Gervais
Register Staff
1-24-2009 Is Inyo County sending mixed messages when it comes to its policy on land designations and property rights?
The board took two very different approaches to questions concerning development and land sales in the past two weeks when it refused to participate in one concerned resident’s crusade to create more developable land by working with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, then, one week later, amended its General Plan to accommodate potential development in the Glacier Lodge area of Big Pine.
The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a lot split on a 70-acre site located immediately adjacent to Glacier Lodge Road, about seven miles west of Big Pine. To legally approve the lot split, the board also had to approve a General Plan amendment that allows the property owner, Steve Heins, to change the existing designation of the property (commercial recreation) and change the acreage configurations dedicated to each parcel.
With that amendment in place, the board approved Heins’ request to split the property into five lots and change the designation of those lots to rural residential.
According to Fourth District Superior Marty Fortney, whose district includes Big Pine, the county’s General Plan is outdated.
“Our county’s General Plan isn’t the best,” Fortney said, noting that much of the land that was designated as recreational should actually be re-zoned to allow for development.
“Back when they originally set up the General Plan, no one thought that someday someone is going to want to develop that land,” Fortney said, “It was just one way of stopping development” in accordance to the county’s policy of preserving open spaces and recreational opportunities.
Fortney said that, as the county continues its search for a new planning director and begins training Bernard Pederson, its new public works director, it will be looking at a new General Plan.
“It’s just one of those things,” Fortney said. “Progress. You need the General Plan to fit the surrounding area.”
The decision to approve the General Plan amendment and allow Heins to re-zone and split his property for future rural development came just one week after the board shot down a request for aid from Lone Pine resident Scott Palomar who is asking that the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power release land for development.
Palomar is concerned that the LADWP is considering purchasing 110 acres and water rights near Oak Creek in Independence, which will eat up scarce economic development opportunities within the county.
“There are sections in the county’s own plan that say LADWP should not increase its net holding” of property, Palomar said.
“The county has previously asked DWP to give up land, which it has done in tiny increments, insufficient to meet growth potential,” a petition protesting LADWP’s possible purchase of the property that was drafted by Palomar states. “Recently DWP put up some 75 acres for auction, but at their top-of-the-market reserve prices, only two parcels sold.”
Palomar further claims that the LADWP cannot sell any land it owns the water rights on without a two-thirds vote from Los Angeles residents. “So once DWP owns Oak Creek or any other land with water rights, it is unlikely to ever again be in private hands, and certainly not with water rights,” the petition said.
But the Board of Supervisors was apprehensive about getting involved in LADWP’s possible purchasing plan.
According to Fortney, whose district also includes the Oak Creek parcel, the problem the board faces “is that DWP had an auction recently, and only sold two parcels, because, frankly, they were over-priced. As far as them complying with the Long Term Water Agreement (which mandates the sale of LADWP property in Inyo County), they have promised to hold another auction.”
Fortney also said that, with the LADWP complying with the Long Term Water Agreement, the Inyo County Board of Supervisors has no authority to tell LADWP what land to buy or sell.
Plus, as far as the Independence land owners are concerned, “It’s not government’s place to tell a land owner who to sell their property to,” he said, “I wouldn’t want to have someone come up to me and tell me that I have to sell my property.”
As for the deteriorating state of the economy in Inyo County, Fortney said that it is as much a cause for the difficulty LADWP experiences when attempting to sell its property as it is a by-product of a lack of developable land in Inyo.
Fortney also said Palomar was out of line for publicly discussing a local property owner’s intentions for their property.
“I was upset that (Palomar) even stuck his nose into their business,” Fortney said. “It’s not right to bring that up and drag someone through the mud because of who they may sell their property to.”
But Palomar’s goal, Palomar said, is to ensure that Inyo County has the means to prosper in the future.
“Businesses have been closing, the population has been dropping – it’s not a good picture,” Palomar said. “There is no vision of a sustainable community for the future” because there is no opportunity for development.
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