Letter to the Editor

Agoura Hills Patch encourages you to sound off on local issues. Have something to say? Let the editor know.

I would like to comment on a few items in your article about the Agoura Village project. Just so we can get it straight.

There is a lot of motivation for this project and I just don't see it being sales tax revenue. Do you see an additional hotel in Agoura as a good investment? Pushing out a bunch of businesses that have been here since the beginning of time, including the Whizin's center, appears drastic at best. Could we really build something equivalent to the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica? A destination that people would go to from all over L.A.?  Not likely.

There has been an ongoing push for this project and the developers involved are the usual suspects. The lawsuit filed and won by Mary Altmann forced the city to completely redo the environmental impact study. The city originally tried to cut many corners and wasn't completely forthcoming with mutable agencies regarding important and relevant aspects of the plan. The current Ladyface Land Use Plan remains very questionable. 

The project displaces a handful of long-term anchor businesses in Agoura. Who would build a project like they offer in the Agoura Village plan with not one but two storage facilities, or a lumber yard and an equipment rental company smack dab in the middle of the project? The city plans on taking over these long-standing businesses with eminent domain.

The history of the city having legal battles with these businesses is staggering. The tens of millions of dollars in legal fees to relocate Agoura rentals through eminent domain alone would cause to question the city's lack of fiduciary responsibilities to the citizens of Agoura Hills. After all of the legal wrangling, the Old Agoura rentals location remains empty.

There are many portions of the Agoura Village plan that are designed to be changed. For instance, do you really think that a roundabout would be appropriate for the intersection of Kanan and Agoura roads? When was the last time anyone drove in a roundabout? The idea is they would never get approval to put in the multiple lane intersection that would be required to handle the traffic forecast in the plan. They would never get the approval to remove an ancient Oak tree near that intersection unless they put in the roundabout and saw that it would be a complete failure. Then they could build the required intersection.

The point is that there are dozens of major issues and shenanigans involved in the project. If you really look into the project, you wonder why all of this is going on. Who asked for Agoura Village? Who wants sound walls and parking structures as the gateway to the Santa Monica Mountains? Mixed use is a joke for the area, but the project was required to have low cost housing to get approval.

The good news is that the USA Gas station is safe from any redeployment plans, likely because USA  holds the title and the mortgage to the City Hall and library building that the city pays rent on every month.

Often things in life are not as they appear. The Agoura Village Project is not as it appears.  I would like to know the honest amount of citizens' monies that has been spent so far on the Agoura Village Plan. I would venture to say it's around $25 or $30 million, maybe more. That's a lot of money for a project that isn't going to see the first shovel for a very long time.

I just thought we should get it straight.

—Joe Dallacqua has lived in Malibou Lake since 1972.