Calabasas Council Unanimously Votes Down West Village Project

CALABASAS, CA — The Calabasas City Council voted late Monday night to unanimously vote against allowing West Village, a controversial project over a decade in the making to place 180 condo units, a 5,867-square-foot commercial retail center, a small park, public trail, and 66 acres of permanent open space at the intersection of Agoura and Las Virgenes roads.

Councilmembers cited numerous concerns about the decades-old project, principally concerns that the project’s fire and evacuation plans were underdeveloped, and universal community opposition. Councilmembers also voiced concerns that the project’s developer, the New Home Company, rejected an alternative proposal approved 3-2 by the Calabasas Planning Commission to build 135 units rather than 180.

“It appears there are real serious concerns regarding safety, traffic, open space, General Plan, and more,” said Councilmember David Shapiro, who had previously expressed support for the project. “Whether it’s the 2.4 million cubic yards of open hillside requiring grading, which may violate our General Plan and open space initiatives, in particular fire zones and safety considerations .... these are valid concerns which I find compelling that require further study and amendment before I could approve this project.”

What to do with the undeveloped site has been a heated question in Calabasas for over 30 years. After years of false starts, in 2016, the City Council voted in favor of the Canyon Oaks project, which would have placed 67 single-family detached homes over 12 acres, a 72,872-square-foot, three-story hotel, and left the remaining 61 acres as open space, but the project was defeated by a public referendum. A new proposal was submitted in October 2016, but was ultimately denied by the Planning Commission in July 2019. The project underwent a third-party geotechnical review that focused on reducing damage to the hillside.

In 2021, a revised Environmental Impact Report was certified 3-2 by the Planning Commission, but Calabasans remain almost universally opposed to the project’s most recent iteration. The city has received 287 letters, and nearly 100 phone calls - all from different people - during two meetings devoted to the plan. As Councilmember Alicia Weintraub pointed out, not a single letter or phone call was in favor of the project.

On Monday, councilmembers had the opportunity to ask questions of New Home representatives and experts before taking final roll call. Weintraub asked New Home attorney Michael Schoenfeld why he thought that was. Schoenfeld replied that opposition always tends to be the loudest, and is not necessarily indicative of public support, but Weintraub said that this is the first time she has not observed any level of support.

“It wasn’t just residents right in this area, it was residents throughout the entire community, so people that don’t necessarily respond to every City Council meeting, this was a broad spectrum of community members who were opposed to this project,” Weintraub said. “It’s a very broad feeling in the community about this project, and I know that’s not a reason that you would voted as an elected yea or nay...we have a lot of contentious projects, but there’s always someone showing up saying, ‘You know what, my neighbors might not like this project, but I really think it’s a good one.’ But on this, there’s been something, and I really think a lot of it has to do with the analysis in terms of wildfire, and some of the deficiencies in the way the EIR regarding a real risk in this community.”

In addition to many concerns over fire and evacuation, callers voiced worry about the project’s effects on traffic, open space, hillside grading, and more. The project called for the remediation and grading of a landslide, the removal of numerous oak trees, and installation of concrete drainage ditches on the site.

“Once the [open space] is destroyed, that’s gonna last forever,” Calabasas resident Cyndilee Rice said Monday during public comment. “We became a city to protect Calabasas and its residents. Measure D was put into law 16 years ago. We have existing laws to protect open space. This land falls under those protections - no development on OSDR land, it’s pretty simple.”
Mayor James Bozajian and Councilmember Peter Kraut also voiced concerns about the project’s compliance with Measure D, a voter passed initiative requiring two-thirds voter approval to build on protected open lands.

“I just cannot in any way reconcile this as being the proper use of open space,” Kraut said. “How could we possibly consider this parcel after we put drainage ditches and engineer slopes into it, how could we possibly consider that open space? I can’t get there, because whether it was a clustering agreement, or it was the 2008 General Plan, a deal was made, and the deal was to concentrate development inside the triangular parcel in exchange for the open space around it.”

“I’m sure the voters didn’t have in mind, and I didn’t have in mind, pouring concrete on the space, clearing out the vegetation and some of the trees and repopulating it with something else, reshaping it, grading it,” said Bozajian, who authored Measure D and subsequently Measure O, another voter-approved measure that removed a 25-year sunset clause on open space limitations. “Because I know what I meant when I wrote the thing in 2005, and again in 2015, and because that’s what was presented to the voters who voted by a 9-1 margin in favor of it, there is no way that this council in my view can alter this open space without a vote of the people.”

City staff will present the Council with a resolution on their findings that will be approved next week, making the decision final. However, as some councilmembers noted, there may still be future attempts to develop the space as the city continues to grapple with how to fulfill state housing requirements.