Electric City

 Tejon Ranch Co. has won another major round in seeing its long fight to build the 6,700-acre Centennial master-planned project near Gorman after the company reached an agreement with environmental nonprofit Climate Resolve to drop its lawsuit. 

In exchange, Lebec-based Tejon Ranch will construct a net-zero emissions community of 19,333 homes with an emphasis on sustainability and wildfire safety. 

“It is a very big step forward to the right direction,” said Barry Zoeller, the company’s senior vice president of corporate communications and investor relations, in reference to the new agreement. “It gets us one step closer to the physical development of Centennial.” 

The expansive Centennial project – to be built in the western edge of the Antelope Valley at the foothills of the Tehachapi Mountains – plans on housing 57,000 people and include 8.4 million square feet of commercial space. 

The project was certified two years ago by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors. However, in April, Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff rejected the county’s approval of Tejon Ranch’s environmental impact report over concerns regarding wildfire risk and the impact of greenhouse gases generated by vehicles. 

In all, more than a dozen legal actions had been filed against Tejon Ranch Co. to delay or block the development of Centennial since 2003. But the company has managed to sign agreements with multiple environmental groups and keep the project moving ahead.

Climate resolution

In the latest agreement, Climate Resolve agreed to dismiss its legal claim that L.A. County violated the California Environmental Quality Act when it approved Centennial in 2019. 

Under the agreement, Tejon Ranch will install nearly 30,000 electric vehicle chargers within and outside the community. The new plan will also include incentives to support the purchase of 10,500 electric vehicles, including trucks and school buses. 

There will also be funding for on-site and off-site fire protection and prevention measures, including fire-resilient design and planning, and vegetation management strategies with benefits to neighboring communities. 

The developer also promised “unrivaled transparency” in the form of providing annual public reports and the creation of “an organization empowered to monitor progress to ensure the agreement results in the benefits identified.” 

The goal is to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by reducing to zero all emissions through significant on-site and off-site commitments, according to a company statement. 

The agreement embodies a significant victory for Tejon Ranch. 

“We are pleased to reach this agreement with Climate Resolve that will enable us to address California’s housing crisis in the most sustainable manner possible,” said Gregory Bielli, chief executive of Tejon Ranch, in a statement.

“By settling with Climate Resolve, we were able to address all of their claims,” Zoeller explained. That means the suit will be dismissed with prejudice – it can never be brought back. 

Zoeller described it as “a long and complicated discussion but I think both sides wanted to reach an agreement because it meant it would allow Centennial to move forward without a lawsuit.”   

“They agreed early on that they had the same goals to try to figure out the emissions,” said Bryn Lindblad, deputy director of Climate Resolve. “It took some learning on Tejon’s part on what is possible to do on-site.” 

The goal is to make life at Centennial all-electric.

There will be a $5,000 incentive for the purchase of an electric vehicle for the first 50 percent of the households, Zoeller said, plus incentives for electric trucks and school buses. 

There is also on-site and off-site wildfire risk to be mitigated. Tejon Ranch will dedicate $500,000 in funding community fire hazard reduction measures, fuel management, a larger buffer zone and drought-tolerant vegetation.  

“Even if it costs us more money to develop, being able to move forward is very important,” Zoeller said.  

Another part of the agreement is the Centennial Monitoring Group that will oversee compliance. Tejon Ranch will pay the group’s annual budget. 

From this will come “an open playbook that other projects could look at,” Lindblad said. “As the industry develops more and more protocol for mitigation projects, we want people to see that range of mitigation that’s available.” 

Lindblad said that developments do not have to be in conflict with environmental goals. 

“We’re showing it doesn’t have to be an either/or,” Lindblad said. “There is a path forward to addressing both.” 

More legal hang-ups

However, there are still many steps to go before Centennial can break ground on the project.

“It’s not the final step forward because one there’s a possibility that Center for Biological Diversity and California Native Plant Society could appeal,” Zoeller said, referring to two organizations involved in the April ruling. “We hope they don’t take that action. Given the tremendous need for housing, (environmental groups suing) just to hold things up doesn’t seem to be doing justice for people needing homes.”  

J.P. Rose, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, noted that there is still time to halt Centennial with Beckloff’s final ruling on Jan. 14.

“Our lawsuit is still ongoing,” Rose said. “It’s definitely not the end of the road with the litigation. Even if the court rules against (us), we can still file an appeal.” 

The center is dissatisfied with the agreement between Tejon Ranch and Climate Resolve because there is no input from L.A. County. 

“The agreement doesn’t address the more important question of whether the board would still approve the development if it was presented with a more accurate EIR,” Rose said, “L.A. County isn’t even part of the agreement with the project. Having the county take a second look at this is important.” 

In the April ruling, Beckloff dismissed 20 of the 23 claims made by the center against the project under the California Environmental Quality Act, focusing on wildfire risks and greenhouse gas emissions by vehicles. 

“The science is clear that developments like Centennial will literally be built to burn, and our elected officials can’t continue to downplay these risks through inaccurate environmental reviews,” Rose said in April. The California Native Plant Society maintains a web page titled “Stop Centennial.”

Rose said that the scope of Tejon’s agreement is not enough. 

“Between 1964 and 2015, 31 wildfires larger than 100 acres occurred within 5 miles of the site, including four within the proposed project’s boundaries,” the Center for Biological Diversity and California Native Plant Society said in a statement. 

Rose also expressed concern over the Centennial Monitory Group that Tejon Ranch plans to establish and fund. 

“The agreement is only between Tejon and Climate Resolve,” Rose said. “For a city-sized development like this, the applicable public agency at L.A. County should have oversight to see all of it is implemented.”