The key to preserving the 2,800-acre ranch may be convincing Sacramento that it’s worth the millions of dollars needed to purchase it.
By P.G. O’Malley
Special to The Malibu Times
The news that began to circulate in late June that Washington Mutual was talking with the state Resources Agency about selling Ahmanson Ranch sent opponents of the 3,050-home/golf course development scurrying for funds to secure the purchase. But money may not be the only hurdle preservationists have to overcome in preserving the 2,800-acre property for the public.
Currently, the Malibu-based Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy is taking the lead in an effort designed to convince Sacramento decision-makers the ranch property is worth spending a big chunk of public dollars on.
“The challenge,” said state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, who’s backing the conservancy’s efforts, “is to convince people in Northern California this isn’t just a traffic issue, that this property is extremely valuable environmentally.”
Kuehl said that once it appeared Washington Mutual might be a willing seller, she and Assemblymember Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills) encouraged groups in favor of purchasing the ranch to help document its biological uniqueness. The conservancy is itself a state agency, said Kuehl, and it was logical that it take the lead. “There had to be documentation about why this property should go to the top of the wish list.”
The most obvious source of funds to purchase the 2,800 acres-located upstream from Malibu, north of Calabasas-is Proposition 50, the statewide initiative that voters passed last year, which provides $300 million for purchasing parkland and wildlife habitat in Ventura and Los Angeles counties.
“The money’s there,” said longtime activist Dave Brown, from the Sierra Club’s Los Angeles Chapter. “The taxpayers have already approved it. The question is how to spend it. In Los Angeles County there’s also the issue of preserving wetlands.”
So far no one’s put a price on the Ahmanson acreage, although sources close to the project say its net value was appraised at $300 million 10 years ago and probably doubled after Washington Mutual acquired it, along with Home Savings.
Conversancy Executive Director Joe Edmiston, who figures the purchase would carry the biggest price tag so far for safeguarding land in and around the mountains, worries that “Some people up north don’t think there’s anything south of the Tehachapis that’s worth this amount of money.” He said the conservancy’s current efforts are focused on convincing state administrators and their consultants, especially the three-member Wildlife Conservation Board, that Ahmanson Ranch is a valuable part of the Santa Monica Mountains, in which $500 billion in federal and state funds have already been invested.
A slick four-color brochure is already circulating in Sacramento, which describes the ranch as a “critical acquisition” to safeguard what’s left of the naturally occurring Mediterranean ecosystem in the Santa Monica Mountains, Santa Susana Mountains and Simi Hills, all under intense pressure from development. (The National Park Service claims only 18 percent of this type of vegetation is left worldwide, and Southern California is only one of four places in the world where it occurs.) The brochure also says the ecological viability of the Santa Monica Mountains is dependent on the “total protection” of the Ahmanson Ranch.
Although pointing out the two endangered species on the property and that the ranch is prime raptor habitat, the report also emphasizes its significance as part of one of only two corridors needed by wildlife to move back and forth between the Santa Monica Mountains and the Los Padres National Forest. Quoting a report from wildlife expert Michael Soulè, the brochure claims the mountains’ population of mountain lions, bobcats and gray foxes is too small to be self-sustaining, and is dependent on replenishment by moving back and forth through the southeast corner of the Ahmanson property.
But even in Southern California, not everyone’s convinced. Brown said that although the Los Angeles chapter of the Sierra Club is basically in favor of the purchase of the Ahmanson property, he wasn’t sure on which side members of the Ventura County Los Padres chapter would line up. “Some people think this is competing with other projects,” Brown said. “There are some inter-jurisdictional issues that have to be worked out.”
Meanwhile, Edmiston is actively lobbying in Sacramento, and the conservancy is expected to host a meeting to bring local scientists together with Wildlife Conservation Board members sometime in the next two weeks.
“This all has to happen pretty quickly,” Edmiston said. “The property is in play and Washington Mutual isn’t going to wait around.”