Diane Trautman Instrumental in Defeating Las Lomas Project
Mega-development’s shelving averts mega-pollution, traffic, says Trautman
NEWS RELEASE
March 21, 2008
Santa Clarita — Diane Trautman and leading project opponents won their battle against the 5,553-unit Las Lomas project Wednesday, when the Los Angeles City Council voted to stop its review of the mega-development proposed for the land adjacent to I-5, just southwest of Santa Clarita.
“This wasn’t anywhere near smart growth,” Trautman said of the project, which was defeated in a 10 to 5 vote spearheaded by Los Angeles City Councilman Greig Smith.
Trautman boarded a Metrolink train early Wednesday morning to attend the decisive downtown Los Angeles meeting, one of several such trips she has made to speak on behalf of Santa Clarita residents.
Diane was interviewed on KABC after attending final meeting on Las Lomas.
“It’s important to be present and testify personally to show public opposition to this project,” Trautman said. “As a member of the Santa Clarita Planning Commission, I felt it was critically important to attend these meetings and make our displeasure known to the Los Angeles City Council. Greig Smith heard our voices and did an outstanding job.”
Immediately after the meeting, Trautman was interviewed for a Los Angeles Times article about the day’s events, and appeared on KABC-TV to comment on the proceedings.
Trautman, who has voiced concerns about the project beginning with the first hearings in 2002, was happy to see the development shelved. “It never represented smart growth,” she said Thursday in a phone interview. “It was always overly ambitious, a completely inappropriate use for that area. It would have created traffic that couldn’t be mitigated,” she said.
According to Trautman, the proposed area has poor road access and no real possibilities for mass transit. “It’s right in the middle of a wildlife corridor. The development would’ve taken down a thousands of mature trees, and the massive grading it required would have created mega-air pollution,” Trautman said. “That’s in addition to the pollution caused by all the traffic that would dump out through that pass — it would be an unhealthful environment for people to live in,” she said.
Trautman said that Dan Palmer, president of the Las Lomas Land Co., promoted the housing development as smart growth. “He was planning to have one school for the entire community. How can you serve elementary and secondary kids at one school?” said Trautman. “It would have taken a generation or two to have enough jobs there to balance things out,” she said. “It was pie-in-the-sky planning.”
