Thursday, June 30, 2005 - Pasadena Star-News

Access feud heads to court

By Kimm Groshong

Staff Writer

Tuesday, July 19, 2005 - ALTADENA - Trail activist and attorney Paul Ayers filed suit Tuesday against the La Vina Homeowners' Association, Los Angeles County and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy on behalf of Save the Altadena Trails.

The suit seeks public access to trails running through the open space surrounding the upscale gated community of La Vina.

The official complaint represents the latest move in a legal impasse that has dragged on since the county first sent letters last July to La Vina residents threatening litigation over the trails.

Those letters were followed by another from the Center for Law in the Public Interest and attorneys from three other firms, including Ayers, in December.

But Ayers, of Monroe & Zinder in North Hollywood, is tired of waiting.

"Let's go forward," he said. He believes the La Vina Homeowners' Association is trying to delay the process, so he filed the action on his own. "Somebody's got to be the first and it's going to be me," he said.

The fierce controversy surrounding the 272-home housing development in Altadena's foothills dates from the 1980s. The developers asked L.A. County for approval to begin construction on 220 acres of land, including parts of Millard Canyon, in 1986. The Board of Supervisors approved the Specific Plan in December 1989, but grading didn't get under way until July 1996 due to strong community opposition.

The conditional use permits that allowed the development call for "a variety of easements for equestrian and hiking trails," among other amenities.

In letters sent to La Vina's property manager in November 2004 and January, the County Department of Regional Planning noted that trail easements on the tentative tract map from 1995 "have not been conveyed to an appropriate agency as required by the conditions of approval." The letters also state that limiting access to existing trails in the open space areas to La Vina homeowners is a violation of the permit.

The developer deeded the 108 acres of open space surrounding La Vina to the development's homeowners' association rather than a conservancy or the Forest Service in 2003. Since then, instead of dedicating the required trail easements, members of the association have posted "No Trespassing" signs along existing trails, further angering trail advocates and neighbors who have used the paths for years.

Members of the homeowners' association have repeatedly pointed to the development's final tract map as proof of its ownership of the open space land in its defense.

But Ayers said the specific plan and permits are the true zoning documents. The Specific Plan No. 2 "trumps a final tract map, the final bugaboo of the homeowners' association," he said.

The action says the Specific Plan conditioned the granting of the 67th building permit on the construction of equestrian trails and the 170th on the construction of a trail along the east, north and west side of La Vina.

Ayres' suit also demands that the county "enforce the conditions of approval agreed upon prior to the development's formation ... Though the Board (of Supervisors) has issued Conditional Use Permits, the Homeowners' Association has not met its obligations pertaining to trail improvement and has disclaimed its obligations to allow public access to trails on its property."

The suit also requires the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy to preserve the open space or trail easement for the public. Ayers said Andrew Oliver, a La Vina project manager for Southwest Diversified (one of many La Vina developers over the years) offered the open space land to the conservancy in 1990. Since the offer was never withdrawn, the conservancy officially accepted the offer at a meeting last December.

"Now it's just a question of enforcing it," Ayers said. "They haven't recorded it."

Leonard Siegel, the attorney for the homeowners' association, said Tuesday that he had not had time to thoroughly review the suit.

At the June Altadena Town Council meeting, Jim Haw, secretary of the homeowners' association board, read excerpts from a board draft statement, which said it is "committed to understanding whether these very complex documents do in fact require public trail access on La Vina property, as a few have claimed, or whether the final tract map signed by the Board of Supervisors and 270 California real estate reports are indeed accurate, that none of the disputed proposed trails are required."

In a letter to the editor which appears on today's editorial page, Supervisor Mike Antonovich wrote that the La Vina Homeowners' Association, as the developer's successor, assumes the developer's trail-related conditions of approval.

"As an essential component of the La Vina approval, the Altadena community deserves to see this trail completed and the County will continue to work to see that this occurs," he wrote.