Cityhood Dream Develops a Hole : LAFCO Approves Calabasas Plan, but May Exempt Big Landowners

The founding father of the “City of Calabasas” sat at the front of a meeting hall and smiled broadly Wednesday as a Los Angeles County agency approved incorporation of his 14-square-mile community.

But Louis Melson’s grin evaporated when members of the county Local Agency Formation Commission immediately announced that they may drastically reduce the approved municipal boundaries--perhaps enough to exclude Melson’s own neighborhood from the city.

Commission members said they will vote Nov. 18 on whether to allow several major landowners to withdraw from the proposed city before the expected public vote on incorporation next year.

If the property owners pull out, they will isolate Melson’s 1,600-family neighborhood from the rest of the city and prevent it from becoming part of the San Fernando Valley’s newest independent municipality.

The decision Wednesday to reconsider Calabasas’ city boundaries was a bitter blow to Melson and other incorporation backers, and a surprise ending to their 2 1/2-year campaign to win LAFCO approval for cityhood.

Commissioners said they are obligated to consider the landowners’ withdrawal requests, which have poured in since the panel unexpectedly overturned its staff’s recommendation and gave preliminary approval to Calabasas cityhood on July 22.

About 2,500 Acres

The vacant land totals about 2,500 acres near the center of the proposed city. Commission executive officer Ruth Benell said a pullout would force LAFCO to likewise eliminate three existing residential areas and a large commercial strip at the western edge of Calabasas from eventual city boundaries.

Leaders of the cityhood campaign tried to put on a happy face about the turn of events.

“We didn’t anticipate this scenario,” said Dennis Washburn, a vice president of the Calabasas incorporation committee. “But this is a victory. They did approve our city.”

Robert Hill, the committee president, said his group will try to persuade the landowners to stay in; if that doesn’t work, they will urge LAFCO to force the property owners to remain, he said.

“We are vulnerable,” said Doris La Violette, another committee vice president who lives in one of the threatened neighborhoods at Calabasas’ western edge. “But there’s no reason we can’t be creative and work our way through this.”

The man holding the key to the city’s fate sat silently through Wednesday’s hearing at the county Hall of Administration in Los Angeles. James Harter, director of planning for the Baldwin Co., wants to remove 1,300 acres from the center of the proposed city.

The Baldwin Co. is buying the hilly land south of the Ventura Freeway and east of Las Virgenes Road in hopes of extending the Calabasas Park luxury home development. Eventual development of the property has long been part of the Calabasas Park master plan, although the land is still in a county agricultural holding zone.

Harter said after the meeting that his Irvine-based company had not spoken up earlier to object to being in the city because it did not expect incorporation approval by LAFCO. He said the tentative approval on July 22 caught him by surprise.

‘Severe Concerns’

“We have severe concerns about a project delay if we are part of the city,” Harter said. “We could be held up three or four years. Typically, what’s happened in other incorporation is that a moratorium on development has been adopted by the city, and then it’s taken 30 months to adopt a general plan.

“We’ve tried to be low-key and not cause problems,” Harter said. “We wanted to be good neighbors.”

LAFCO’s decision to reconsider the boundaries of Calabasas overshadowed the incorporation committee’s dramatic, last-minute financial victory.

Hours before the commission meeting, Gov. George Deukmejian signed a bill into law that will save Calabasas up to $1 million a year on fire protection. The stroke of the governor’s pen erased a projected first-year $236,763 deficit for the proposed city.

Incorporation backers, who said they had prepared an emergency backup budget in case the governor did not sign the measure Tuesday, were jubilant at the start of Wednesday’s meeting.

“We’ve done it,” Melson had said confidently, as commissioners filed into the meeting room.

But Melson, who launched the cityhood move to head off possible Calabasas annexations by neighboring Agoura Hills and Los Angeles and was the committee’s first president, wasn’t as confident afterward.

“It’s going to be a tough battle,” he said. “We’re not going to go down without a fight. Baldwin’s going to have to stay, period.”