Calabasas Homeowners Ready to Do Battle on High-Rise Plan

Hours after being denied cityhood until at least 1988, Calabasas homeowners moved quickly Wednesday night to assert private control over a $150-million high-rise project proposed for the entrance to their neighborhood.

Residents of the wealthy Calabasas Park area said they have hired their own traffic expert to analyze plans for the proposed hotel and office complex that would spring up in front of their homes. They said they will also hold their own community referendum to determine the height of the buildings.

If the project’s designers do not listen to them, they then will take their complaints to Los Angeles County officials and--if necessary--to court, homeowners said.

So far, however, the Ahmanson Commercial Development Co. has seemed willing to compromise on the development of a 72-acre Calabasas Road parcel it owns between the Ventura Freeway and Calabasas Park’s master-planned residential area, neighborhood leaders said.

Although the company unveiled plans last year for a 10-story project, it is now proposing an eight-floor limit for its complex of 17 office buildings and parking structures.

Not Good Enough?

Representatives of the development firm, which is affiliated with the huge Home Savings of America, have vowed to preserve a steep hill on the site to shield the expensive nearby homes from the high-rises.

But that might not be good enough, a crowd of 150 homeowners told project designers during a three-hour meeting at Calabasas High School.

The high-rises--the first ever proposed for the community--would be glaringly out of place in Calabasas Park, residents complained.

They predicted that traffic generated by the 1.6-million-square-foot office project and 200-room hotel would likely suffocate their 1,100-house neighborhood, which is expected to more than double in size during the next decade.

“The community won’t go for any buildings that high,” said George Schardt, who has lived in Calabasas Park for four years. “This was established as a rural residential community. It wasn’t meant to become another industrial park like Warner Center.”

James Foley, Calabasas Park Homeowners Assn. president, said homeowners will be polled about the project after his group’s independent traffic analyst studies Ahmanson’s traffic-flow projections.

“The building height issue will be our most difficult problem,” Foley said. “Will everybody be satisfied if you can’t see the buildings over the hill? Or do they want no high-rises in Calabasas Park?”

Blocked 10-Building Project

If Calabasas Park residents decide to fight, it will not be the first time they have gone to war over proposed plans for the 72-acre parcel.

Three years ago, homeowners successfully blocked a 10-building commercial project planned by the site’s previous owner, the Calabasas Park Co. That firm had proposed to bulldoze the hill at the rear of the parcel to create flat building pads for an industrial park.

Residents swiftly raised $30,000 to hire lawyers and lobbyists to fight the proposal. The Calabasas Park Co. retreated and last year sold the site to Ahmanson.

Robert Hill, who was the 1984 president of the Calabasas Park homeowners group that blocked the earlier project, went on to help organize the Calabasas Cityhood Committee, which he now heads.

Incorporation backers had hoped to form the new City of Calabasas this fall in time to force Ahmanson to submit its development plans to the city for approval, rather than to the often pro-development county.

On Wednesday morning, however, Hill’s group learned that the proposed 26-square-mile city was too large for acceptable city services, and that they would have to cut the size of the proposed city in half before the county’s Local Agency Formation Commission would approve it. The redrawing of the boundaries will delay a public vote on cityhood until 1988.

Ahmanson officials said Wednesday night they are confident that all differences can be worked out with homeowners before they file their 10-year development plan this fall with the county’s planning department. If the project is approved, Ahmanson would begin construction early next year.

Can Solve Traffic Problems

“We don’t plan to come in and say this is the project, like it or leave it,” said William D. Loadvine, an Ahmanson vice president.

Lee Ward, Ahmanson’s traffic consultant, said he is convinced that “95% of the traffic problems” in the area will be solved by proposed Ahmanson-financed street widenings and improvements to the nearby Parkway Calabasas freeway interchange.

If homeowners disagree, “I’ll go back to the drawing board,” Ward vowed.

Joel Abrams, an eight-year Calabasas Park resident who represents his neighborhood on a state transportation advisory panel, suggested that Ward and the other project planners do just that.

“What you’re planning isn’t going to help the traffic mess we’re in,” Abrams said.

Added neighbor Dick Carroll: “We don’t want our houses to look out of place because of what you’ve developed.”