Tejon Ranch Updates Community

‘Negotiation May Be Better Than Litigation,’ CEO Stine Tells 100

In two events last week, Tejon Ranch Company offered Mountain Community residents access to its executives and consultants to review current TRC development plans and anticipated schedules for both Tejon Mountain Village and the Centennial projects. "We are in the final stages of the Environmental Impact Reports," President and CEO Robert Stine told Mountain Community residents, predicting that documents would be coming to the public "by the end of the year." Foreshadowing anticipated legal wrangles related to recent lawsuits filed by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) in Riverside County Superior Court, he said "we are working on climate change" sections of the report.

Reflecting on the three year passage through "very expensive litigation" with CBD over Tejon Industrial Park East, Stine said the cost to Tejon was $3 million compared to $500,000 spent by the company in a voluntary emission reduction agreement (VERA) with Kern County to replace inefficient agricultural diesel engines throughout the region with new low-emissions engines. "We plan to go forward finding solutions through negotiation rather than with litigation on land planning" [and environmental concerns], he said.

A "by invitation only" breakfast was held Saturday, June 16 at the TRC headquarters in Lebec to discuss Centennial, a phased 23,000 home complex with four or five anticipated industrial parks, to be located east of Highway 138 and Interstate 5, in Los Angeles County. An estimated 50 people attended the breakfast.

An open invitation was offered to Mountain Community residents to attend the Thursday, June 21 "update meeting" at Frazier Mountain High School to learn about the company’s overview of currently announced development plans for the 270,000 acre ranch. About 100 people attended, ranging from Jarrud Prosser (the newly appointed FMHS football coach) to David Dominguez, with the Chumash Tribal Council, Ileene Anderson from CBD and Mary Ann Lockhart from the Sierra Club.

Both events were cordial and informative, blending qualities of a low-key marketing event with that of a press conference- a hint of the political nature of the path ahead as the company seeks approvals for its projects from both L.A. and Kern Counties. On its website and in its materials, TRC is also lobbying the public to sign statements saying "I support Tejon Mountain Village" and "I Support Centennial."

Company executives, project heads and consultants were available to discuss details of the plans at displays set up around the room.

In addition to Centennial and the massive Tejon Industrial Complex (east and west) which was given a green light to proceed by the Kern County Board of Supervisors as well as the Fifth District Court of Appeals in Fresno in March, there was also a display for Tejon Mountain Village- 3,500 luxury homes, multiple golf courses and seven resort hotels on about 30,000 acres east of Lebec, in Kern County.

Tejon Ranch Company entered into a partnership in May 2006 with DMB Associates of Scottsdale, Arizona to jointly develop and build Tejon Mountain Village.

Stine introduced Roberta Marshall, "we hired her from The Irvine Company" who he said would manage the development of TMV with their goal of having "a light touch on the environment."

Marshall said she has been "living on the land since September…it is a wonderful place to live and I am impressed with the stewardship."

She said she is putting together a team of "technical experts," some of whom are living in local mountain communities. "I firmly believe you can have environmentally sensitive and well-planned development. That is our goal," she said.

—Reported by Patric Hedlund

See related article "Showdown at Tejon Ranch"

This is part of the June 29, 2007 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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