Sacramento Bee: Building a vast new city on L.A.’s northern edges: A solution for region’s housing crunch?

Up near the top of the Grapevine, where Los Angeles and Kern counties meet, sits the largest contiguous expanse of privately owned land in California. Sprawling grasslands sprout native and non-native species. Joshua trees with spiky branches clump together. At higher elevations, oak and pine forests blanket hillsides in a thick, green velvet, providing a home to deer, black bears and elk. Tejon Ranch, a 270,000-acre plot, is one of the last frontiers of relatively undeveloped space in the Los Angeles region. That may soon change. After years of planning and debate, as well as real estate busts and booms, the Centennial development is set to come before L.A. County’s Regional Planning Commission for possible final consideration Wednesday.