Thanks to the savvy and hard work of so many – 21,000 acres of the Santa Monica Mountains are now protected from commercial vineyards! The new Vineyard Ordinance for the North Area Plan went into force and effect today!

A Mansion, a Shell Company and Resentment in Bel Air – The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/us/shell-company-bel-air-mansion.html?emc=edit_na_20151214&nlid=52143300&ref=headline&_r=0

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Digging an assumed SEPTIC for a 10,000 SF mega-mansion on one of Calabasas’ now no-longer protected, pristine significant ridgelines began this week in Old Topanga – with a variance approved by Mayor James Bozajian, and Councilmembers Fred Gaines, David Shapiro, and Alicia Weintraub (as a Planning Commissioner) .…. Continue reading →

Planning Laws Affect Property Values and Define the City and Neighborhood You Live In

Re-zoning, giving variances and amendments to developers so they can usurp a city’s land-use laws negatively impacts residents’ quality of life and property values, but it’s also about money and power…“In this County, the power to rezone property involves the power to create great wealth, and the effect of corrupt action by a public official in these matters, in my opinion, is just as reprehensible as taking money from the public treasury…the expectation of buying property for X dollars and then applying for [variances] to make the value of that property 10 times X shows it’s a free-for-all.” (Excerpted from LA Times, Oct. 14,2015 (Patt Morrison article)http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-morrison-silverstein-20151014-column.html 

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