County Tightens Rules to Shield Ecological Zones : Lands: Supervisors require closer scrutiny of applications to build on 29 parcels deemed environmentally sensitive.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday increased scrutiny of applications to build in 29 areas designated as ecologically sensitive.

The changes, proposed by Supervisor Ed Edelman in March, include hiring a county biologist to analyze all projects proposed for the zones, requiring an earlier survey of the land’s biological resources and mandating a review by the county Planning Commission of any project exempted from full environmental study.

Environmental activists applauded the unanimous vote as a first step toward preserving the Significant Ecological Areas--SEAs--identified 11 years ago by county planners as home to important examples of Southern California plants and wildlife.

“We’re giving the SEAs a better chance at survival by giving the public officials more thorough, more complete scientific data from which they can make a decision,” said Peter Ireland, assistant executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority.

Originally, 61 zones were included in the county list, but through annexation and incorporation into city jurisdictions only 29 remain under county control, said Pamela Holt, an assistant administrator of the county Department of Regional Planning.

No developers spoke against the changes Tuesday and Holt said she had received few complaints. At hearings on the issue before the Regional Planning Commission, developers testified that they hoped the changes would streamline the review process, which they said had become increasingly unwieldy, delay-prone and contradictory.

“They just want to know consistently what is expected of them,” Holt said. “The responsible ones do most of this already.”

Most of the ecological zones are privately owned and were never intended by county planners to remain completely devoid of buildings. But a review last year by The Times showed that many had experienced intensive construction that had undermined their environmental value, and that pressure to permit more development was increasing.

The board’s action Tuesday calls for an in-depth inventory of the areas, perhaps beginning this summer. The inventory will be paid for by a private garbage disposal company, Browning-Ferris Industries, as the price of the board’s permission to expand the Sunshine Canyon Landfill into an oak-filled ecological area above Granada Hills.

Jerry Daniel, the supervisors’ appointee to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy board, said the study alone would aid the zones’ survival by increasing public attention to them. Daniel said he hoped that the study might also suggest additional areas suitable for protection.

“That’s a very bold step . . . but we’re hopeful,” he said.

In addition, Daniel said he saw great promise in the county’s decision to establish a list of county-approved environmental consultants that developers could use to prepare their analyses. Previously members of the SEA review board, known as SEATAC, have complained that paid consultants were bending the facts to suit developers’ desires.

The 45 or so SEA development cases now pending with the county would be largely unaffected by the changes, although any that receive an exemption from full environmental review from SEATAC face an additional trip to the Planning Commission.

Ireland and other environmentalists had hoped that the pending cases would be forced to meet all the new requirements, but Edelman said he felt that he had to “protect the people already in the process” from being required to apply all over again.