The atmosphere in the Bakersfield City Council chambers was almost festive Wednesday night as council members unanimously voted to approve the hillside ordinance that will ensure the orderly development of the hills in northeast Bakersfield.

Not that council members swapped high fives, mind you. There was no triumphant fist-pumping in the audience, no unseemly victory dances in the foyer. But the relief over ending this six-year saga -- at least for the moment -- was palpable.

Hopefully the howling mobs will now disperse, The Californian's editorial writers will find another topic to obsess over and the City Council and developers can get down to the business at hand -- the fair and just enactment of the ordinance.

A little fairness is long overdue, but before we get into that, I have to say the ordinance, for the most part, is a great idea. I love everything about it. Almost.

No homes on the bluffs? Good idea, though no one actually ever planned to build homes on those ridges in the first place. Health and safety standards for fire protection and erosion control? Super, got to have 'em. Viewsheds and slope protection? Fine, no problem.

Including a provision that compensates property owners for land they will no longer be able to develop, but bought before the ordinance was even a twinkle in the planning commission's collective eye?

Oops, not included.

The long and bitter battle over the bluffs has not been fought over viewsheds, slope protection or even the snotty attitudes of out-of-town developers. It was and still is about respecting private property rights and honoring contracts.

Contracts like those made by Gordon and Joyce Downs who, as part of a development group that includes General Holding, bought 40 acres of land in the foothills east of Hart Park in 2004.

Downs, a Kern County native who has found success in his heavy-equipment rental business, said he did his homework before making the land purchase, checking with the city's general plan and reading every available document to ensure his business venture was as low-risk as possible.

Downs' own development plan was deemed complete by the city in July 2005. The most recent version of the hillside ordinance -- the one with aesthetic provisions that would prevent Downs from developing most of his property -- was not even available for public notice until May 2006.

The fact that the aesthetic provisions didn't even exist when Downs and other developers bought their property is lost on the ordinance's most ardent supporters, who insist the property owners ignored other documents that indicated such requirements were in the offing.

Documents like the city's Vision 2020 plan, a general, long-range plan for the city's growth that includes in its 94 pages a reference noting the importance of viewsheds and "the aesthetic value of open space areas."

Open spaces just like those found on Downs' property! How's that for a connection?

Pretty lame. Downs thinks so, too, and says he only wished he'd been clairvoyant enough to predict what lay ahead.

"If I were (clairvoyant), I'd go to Vegas, play the roulette wheel for a day and retire," he says. "If those class one and class two viewsheds in the revised ordinance had been in effect when we purchased the property, we wouldn't have bought it."

But they weren't and he did. And even though the ordinance's head cheerleader, Councilman Mike Maggard, was able to return most of Downs' lots two weeks ago in a compromise made with a quick sweep of his pen, the developer is "still looking at over a $1 million impact" in lost revenue, says Scott Howry, attorney for Downs and other property holders.

"We have a very strong legal argument against the ordinance because it can't retroactively be applied to the projects," he says. "We're going to continue to work to resolve our differences over the next few months."

Lawsuits, Howry says, will surely be filed.

But costly litigation can still be avoided thanks to variances built into the ordinance that will allow developers and City Council members to address aesthetic and other issues as they arise during development. At least three council members made a public promise to honor those variances before casting their votes Wednesday night.

Smart growth that invests in the entire community is something everyone in Bakersfield wants. But regulating property out from under its rightful owners isn't smart -- it's unethical, un-American and just plain dumb.