Chatsworth Ca Development And Redevelopment

A controversial plan to build a residential development on a broad pasture that for generations has been the center of Chatsworth's equestrian community was approved Thursday by the Los Angeles Planning Commission. The panel voted 5 to 2 in favor of a developer's plan to build 20 single-family houses on the 6.7-acre lot at the northwest corner of Chatsworth Street and Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

A Los Angeles City Council panel on Tuesday recommended approval of a 21-home development in Chatsworth over strong opposition from neighbors who argued it threatens their equestrian lifestyle. Encino developer Ted Stein, an influential former chairman of the city Planning Commission, plans to build 21 homes on 6.7 acres at the northwest corner of Chatsworth Street and Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

A group of Chatsworth residents announced Monday they have filed a lawsuit to block a proposed 21-home development in a horse-keeping area, charging that a City Council-approved zone change threatens the neighborhood's equestrian lifestyle. The development, which would not permit horses, involves small lots next to existing, much-larger, horse-keeping properties. That may encourage others in the area to subdivide their lots, critics contend. The suit by the Chatsworth Land Preservation Assn.

Although the start on construction of the West Valley's first county courthouse was delayed many years, work now underway is several months ahead of schedule, officials said Tuesday. The $65-million Superior Court, the third Superior Court building in the San Fernando Valley, should be completed by April, said Gene Frey, project superintendent with Hathaway Dinwiddie Construction Co., the courthouse builder. Completion had originally been scheduled for next summer.

With two fiber-optics companies going public this month, and a third on the way early next year, Chatsworth is quietly emerging as a regional spawning ground for one of technology's hottest growth sectors. Today, shares of optical-components maker Luminent Inc., a spinoff of MRV Communications, will begin trading on Nasdaq under the symbol LMNE. The company late Thursday raised $144 million by selling 12 million shares at $12 each.

Ever since hundreds of postage stamp-size lots were drawn onto subdivision maps 70 years ago, residents of the quaint Twin Lakes Park and Deerlake Highlands communities in the craggy hills north of Chatsworth have dreaded development but feared it was inevitable. The more than 200 acres of rugged property at the north end of Canoga Avenue have served for decades as the playground of equestrians, hikers and mountain bikers.

Plans to develop a portion of Chatsworth Reservoir with athletic fields and other moneymaking uses received a cold shoulder Monday from the head of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy as talks opened on the future of the 1,300-acre property. The conservancy has proposed leasing the property from the Department of Water and Power so it can be maintained as undeveloped open space and a nature preserve, conservancy Director Joe Edmiston told DWP board President Rick Caruso.

A long-running fight over the future of Chatsworth Reservoir edged toward a truce at City Hall on Tuesday as a top official of the Department of Water and Power finally agreed to preserve the land as open space. For months, Councilman Hal Bernson and DWP board President Rick Caruso have locked horns over the 1,300-acre site, a dry reservoir carpeted with grass, wetlands and oak trees that the city has designated a nature preserve.

Natrol Inc., a manufacturer and marketer of dietary supplements, will move its Laci Le Beau tea division from Fresno to the company's Chatsworth headquarters. Company officials said the move would take place by June. Natrol purchased the specialty tea company last October. The move is expected to cut operating costs.

Groundbreaking for a long-awaited county courthouse in Chatsworth, scheduled to be built in the early 1990s until fiscal woes ground the project to a halt, will officially take place Thursday morning, county officials announced. The $59-million Municipal Court building will go up on a vacant 9-acre parcel of land at 9425 Penfield Ave., near the corner of Winnetka Ave. and Prairie Street. It is scheduled to open in October 2001.