State Investigates Sinking Agoura Hills Condo Project

The state Department of Consumer Affairs is investigating the construction of an Agoura Hills condominium project beset by buckling walls and sinking foundations, officials said Thursday.

The department’s Contractors State License Board will submit its findings on the 27-unit Westlake Villas town house development to the state attorney general’s office next week, according to Warren A. Drayton, senior deputy with the board.

After inspecting the 2 1/2-year-old development Thursday afternoon, Drayton said it looks 20 years old. On Wednesday, he met with one of the development’s main contractors in San Diego.

“The builders are basically saying they built this place to the plans. They are all predicating their defense on the premise that the soils report that was used in drawing up the plans was inadequate,” Drayton said.

Further studies of the foundations and walls at the complex will be made early next week by state engineers, he said. The engineers will try to determine how faithfully builders followed the plans, and whether they should have alerted developer Hilbert Chu that the plans were faulty, Drayton added.

If the attorney general’s office finds the builders at fault, he said, the case could be forwarded to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office for prosecution.

Meanwhile, 19 families owning the $100,000 town houses at the complex on Colodny Drive are waiting to learn the status of tentative offers to repurchase their damaged units.

The buy-out proposal was offered last week to residents by a retired San Diego Superior Court judge who is overseeing settlement talks between homeowners and the developer. Any settlement must be approved by insurance companies involved with the case.