CORRIDOR PLAN SPARKS CONCERN.

Byline: Michael Coit Daily News Staff Writer

Prospective buyers have come and gone without persuading Vance Moran to sell 330 acres along Kanan Road south of Agoura Hills, mostly because the longtime area resident says he doesn't want too many homes built on the land.

Moran said he didn't sweat over a Los Angeles County planning reform adopted in 1981 that reduced the allowable development to 134 homes, leaving 260 acres reserved as open space. But he now fears an overhaul of that same plan would reduce any project to as few as 66 homes.

``We could have got a lot more before. As far as I'm concerned, that was too many,'' said Moran, former partner of Art Whizin's, one of the Agoura area's foremost developers. ``But they may cut it down based on less density. And if they do that, we can't have any development at all because the cost of putting in the roads and all the improvements would be prohibitive.

``We've owned this land for 40 years, and I think it's only fair that we be allowed to develop something.''

Fairness was a critical issue for the dozens of property owners who turned out at two public meetings, in February and again last week, to discuss the first draft of the Ventura Freeway Corridor Areawide Plan.

Based on concerns that the proposal would reduce allowable development on some parcels as much as 50 percent or 80 percent, the Los Angeles Regional Planning Commission is expected to host another workshop in the area in 90 days. Planning staff is expected to send a revised draft to the commission for formal action later this year.

The plan

Five years in the works, the corridor plan would bolster building densities and environmental management policies that couldn't prevent a period of ``planning by amendment'' in the go-go 1980s. That period yielded developments beyond what the existing Malibu-Santa Monica Mountains Area Plan envisioned, said officials leading the effort.

The corridor plan seeks to maintain ``rural lifestyles'' by reducing building density to lessen impacts on roads, schools and water resources, and foster protection of ridge lines, wildlife habitat and parkland.

The area covered spans of 60 square miles, from Calabasas to the Ventura County line, north to the Simi Hills and south to Mulholland Highway.

``It's vital that we have a cohesive plan. Before, the county was just saying, the heck with you guys,'' said Gene Talmadge, planning administrator for the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District. ``It was that reason that we wanted to get this together.''

The effort

Leaders of the water district and the Las Virgenes Unified School District pushed for the corridor study because those agencies were most impacted by unanticipated development.

Joining the unprecedented effort are the cities of Agoura Hills, Westlake Village, Calabasas and Hidden Hills, the National Park Service and the county. The agencies spent $265,000 on the plan prepared by a consultant, LSA Associates Inc., under the leadership of community, policy and technical advisory committees.

The cooperation is notable because those cities incorporated to take over land-use planning from the county. Agoura Hills and Calabasas, incorporated in the early 1980s and 1990s respectively, contain much of the development the corridor plan now seeks to prevent.

Potential problem

Each of the cities has generally more restrictive planning standards than the county, so the corridor plan seeks to minimize future conflict by amending adjoining land uses and establishing common development standards.

``The people in these cities still want to see the hills in the distance, but the problem is that is private property,'' said Dave Brown, a longtime Las Virgenes Homeowners Association foe of developers and now a Calabasas planning commission member.

That Brown contends the answers can be found in the proposed corridor plan is not surprising, given that he was a National Park Service appointee to the community advisory panel.

Brown said the region's capacity to handle significant development has been used up.

He acknowledges there might be conflicts with property owners seeking to subdivide based on the old rules.

``What upset the apple cart is the county didn't adhere to the areawide plan,'' Brown said. ``We're changing the rules, but the thing to remember is the good land was built on first.''

Several property owners have called on the Building Industry Association for help in dealing with the pending plan.

``They are sensitive to the environment and have a certain expectation of participating with park districts and doing some sensible land development,'' said Dee Zinke, executive director for the association's Greater Los Angeles/Ventura chapter. ``They fear their land would be so restricted they would only be able to ranch it.''

Zinke said the call for another public workshop hopefully indicates the proposed corridor plan is a ``test run'' and will be changed.

``Most of the owners have lived in the area for a long time,'' she added. ``Some of them are concerned about being able to sell off land or split lots among children. There are people in the middle of processing plans, and the new plan suggests that would be severely reduced.''

One primary change is in defining distributions of land uses. The county has used the region's hillside topography, creating a mosaic pattern of residential uses. The corridor plan assigns land uses by actual parcels, as the cities have.

Aesthetic factors are prominent given the topography. Elevations range from mountain features reaching a height of 2,380 feet on the west to Las Virgenes Canyon at 575 feet to the east, with incised canyons, arroyos and undeveloped ridge lines throughout.

The corridor plan would keep development off ridge lines, limit building on slopes, and require low-intensity directional street lighting and screening to preserve a natural night sky.

The goal

A primary goal for preserving swaths of open space and wildlife corridors is their relation to the four Significant Ecological Areas established by the county within the corridor area.

``There's still a lot of wild land out there,'' said Scott Erickson, deputy superintendent for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

While the corridor plan primarily aims to conform city and county planning, it also recognizes plenty of open space dedications that are not set aside as permanent, Erickson said.

``Through time, agencies forget about those dedications, and the next thing you know there's a build-out,'' he said.

Erickson acknowledges, however, that defining such urban build-out limits is a tough political move. ``Everybody gets a little uptight when that happens because it might impact what a developer can do with his land.''

Property owners within the corridor fear the plan would effectively draw a line around the cities limiting reasonable development beyond in the unincorporated county.

``Basically, the people who did the plan said, if we force everybody to do bigger lots, we're reducing the density, the population, the traffic congestion. They've backed into this in a way that just isn't appropriate,'' said Mike Lewis, a consultant on the corridor plan for the Building Industry Association.

Lewis knows the corridor area, having represented property owners before the county and other regulatory agencies. Notably, he represented Soka University, which gained county approval for a scaled-back Calabasas campus, and Potomac Investments, which dropped its massive Jordan Ranch proposal north of Agoura Hills to join the Ahmanson Ranch project, selling the 2,500-acre Jordan Ranch so it could become National Park Service land.

The corridor plan, Lewis contends, would actually harm efforts to preserve open space because lower-density land-use designations encourage building single homes on mostly two- five- and 10-acre lots rather than clustering more homes on smaller portions of parcels.

Lewis said limits on improving existing roads would create greater congestion even with lower building densities because the region is rich in jobs and draws commuters. Further, he said the congestion would be felt by people coming into

the area to enjoy the parks and open space the plan aims to preserve.

``The problem is it's a punitive plan,'' Lewis said. ``If it achieved a broad public goal, that would be fine. But they're not achieving any public good.''

Supporters of the corridor plan have a different view of the public good.

``They want to go back to the good old days, and that's in their interest, but it's not in our interest, said Brown, the Calabasas planning commissioner.

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MAP: VENTURA FREEWAY CORRIDOR AREAWIDE PLAN