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From: "Architexturez." <interface.services@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2007 22:52:45 +0530
By JON GERTNER
Published: March 18, 2007
Tejon Ranch’s grand size and location have already transformed the
prospect for its development into a passionate, once-in-a-lifetime
battle for housing or conservation. After this ranch is carved up, there
will not be any others like it again. Perhaps that’s why both parties
repeatedly asked me which side’s argument I found most persuasive. But
if anything seemed clear, it was that Tejon’s projects have brought
about a collision of reasonable people. Each side cares deeply about the
value of the land. The irreconcilable problem is that they value it for
entirely different reasons. Robert Stine of Tejon put it to me this way:
“You’re never going to please all the people all the time. We know that.
So we’ve got to do what we think is the right thing for the land, for
the communities that we want to build and for our shareholders.”
Meanwhile, the environmental coalition isn’t naïve; its members know
that there’s a fortune at stake — one Tejon investor, the money manager
James Roumell, told me the value of Centennial’s development to the
ranch corporation is $500 million.
“We recognize the fact that it is private land; it is a publicly owned
company with shareholders,” Ileene Anderson says. “They need to make a
return on their investments. Certainly California is not losing
population, and people have to live somewhere.” But in Anderson’s view,
it comes down to the benefits of the ranch and its stockholders or the
benefits of all Californians. You could simplify that further and say it
comes down to money or to nature. For better and for worse, the land
holds both.
cont'd....
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/realestate/keymagazine/318CITY.t.html?_r=1&ref=keymagazine&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin