An appeals court will hear arguments Thursday on a proposed large-scale residential and commercial project in the Tejon Ranch area 65 miles north of downtown Los Angeles.
In 2023, a judge ordered Los Angeles County to set aside its approval of Tejon Ranchcorp’s Centennial, a massive development that would bring 57,000 residents to a site near the Grapevine.
In 2021, the Superior Court judge ruled that the county’s environmental review for the project violated state law by failing to thoroughly analyze and reduce climate and wildfire risks the 12,000-acre project would pose to surrounding land.
The 2nd District Court of Appeals on Thursday will hear arguments from the developers appealing the lower court decision. The Center for Biological Diversity and California Native Plant Society are asking the court to rule against the development for allegedly blocking wildlife movement and destroying native plants.
“Having witnessed wildfire devastation on such a massive scale, Los Angeles County should think twice about building new cities in dangerous wildfire zones,” John Buse, senior counsel at the CBD, said in a statement. “Wildfire risk is just one of many problems with this poorly planned project. Allowing Centennial to be built as proposed would cause irreparable harm to native grasslands that serve as precious habitat for rare plants and wildlife.”
A request for comment sent to Tejon Ranchcorp was not immediately answered.
The mixed-use residential community located in the northwest Los Angeles County section of Tejon Ranch was to include more than 19,300 homes and more than 10.1 million square feet of commercial space.
From 1964 to 2015, 31 wildfires larger than 100 acres occurred within five miles of the site, including four within the proposed project’s boundaries, according to the CBD.
Nearly all contemporary wildfires in California are caused by human sources such as power lines and electrical equipment and development increases that threat, the center maintains.
The CBD maintains the development would increase daily traffic by 75,000 vehicles, undermining California’s climate goals and generating more air pollution. The court also found that the county failed to adopt all feasible mitigation measures to reduce the development’s massive greenhouse gas impacts.
The project would also require construction of an $830 million freeway that together with the development would block the movement of mountain lions, who are already struggling to maintain genetic diversity because they are hemmed in by existing highways and development, according to the CBD.