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Citizens aim to change rural code standards
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press
Saturday, July 25, 2009.
By
CRAIG CURRIER
Valley Press Staff Writer
LITTLEROCK - Increasingly over the last two years, rural Antelope Valley landowners like Bill Guild have been criticizing Los Angeles County officials, claiming, among friends and at organized meetings, their campaign to enforce zoning, building, health and other codes was aggressive and predatory.
Slowly, though, Guild and his friends with the Antelope Valley Truckers Organization are changing their tactics.
Having passed a Community Standards District setting development and property guidelines two years ago, the town councils of Littlerock and Sun Village are now battling new issues, not only with county officials but among themselves.
When 5th District county Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich introduced the Nuisance Abatement Teams to the Antelope Valley, hoping to clean up properties and land use in the area, code enforcement subsequently became a hot-button issue in the unincorporated communities.
After fighting the county for more than 18 months, though, Guild and truckers organization leaders are turning their efforts to working with officials on amending the Community Standards District regulations, which, when finished, are expected to protect all reasonable and desirable rural land uses.
Guild, who is on the seven-person amendment committee that includes representatives from the two town councils as well as a pair of community members, said the original Community Standards District regulations were completed just as county officials began their increased effort.
"When we originally approved the CSD, none of this was a problem," Guild said.
"This is for the benefit of the whole community, to protect them from unwarranted and unnecessary citations."
Officials from the Department of Regional Planning, Public Works and the Health Department are conjoined in the two abatement teams that enforce codes in the Valley.
While Norm Hickling, field deputy for Antonovich, maintained that the teams are working with the same diligence as the individual departments did before, Guild said their effect was never felt as much as it has been during the last two years.
For that reason, residents with collectible cars, large sea/land storage containers, commercial vehicles and other items on their properties that are not permitted by the county are begging for help to loosen the restrictions.
The solution, the councils and county agree, is to amend the current Community Standards District.
Doing so, however, involves a lengthy and problematic process.
Before taking the amended standards to county officials, community leaders must work together to create a document everyone will support.
"In a community as diverse as Littlerock, there's always the suspicion that somebody is trying to put something over on somebody," Guild said. "That's not the truth, though. The committee is trying to protect everybody in the community."
Not only are the standards debated among Littlerock residents, but they must incorporate those in Sun Village, as well.
That, Littlerock Town Council member Tom Fidger said, presents an even more complicated task.
"It's taken a long time for anyone to do anything," Fidger said. "It's taken forever and it shouldn't.
"There's other business to do in this community besides trucks, containers, yard art and all this other stuff."
Sun Village Town Council President James Brooks said he supports the endeavor, but wants to make sure his residents' concerns are included, too.
"We want to see something that is going to serve the community for years to come," Brooks said.
Brooks said the Sun Village Town Council has reviewed partial plans sent from Littlerock and the truckers organization, but he has yet to see a final draft that includes all the amendments.
He said he will wait for that to arrive before making a judgment.
One point of contention is the proximity of the communities in relation to where one ends and the other begins.
Brooks said Sun Village residents want the reworked standards to include a definitive boundary that marks their community.
"People are saying, 'Where is Sun Village; where does it end?'" Brooks said. "This is an area we pride ourselves with respecting our diversity and the different towns.
"Where is Sun Village? It depends on how you talk to. It is an issue people care about."
Guild said, with the help of the truckers organization, language is finalized for the commercial trucks, the containers and the collector cars, plenty of ground still is left to cover.
The amendment committee is working on a catch-all category for wagons, gas pumps, tractors and other "rural artifacts," Guild said.
"We're probably at least six months away from that vote," he said.
"A lot of people are not aware of what we're doing.
"There are people who do not pay attention until an issue like this comes up, and then they come out of the woodwork.
"There will be those people and we understand that, but we are looking at the bigger picture that this is the right thing to do for everybody."
ccurrier@avpress.com
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