Planners Reject Bid by School to Build in Calabasas

A proposal to build a $15-million private school between two Calabasas neighborhoods was rejected Thursday by the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission.

After planners voted 3 to 1 to deny a conditional-use permit and oak-removal permit sought by operators of the North Hollywood-based Oakwood School, school officials said they would appeal to the county Board of Supervisors.

The school wants to build a 682-student campus on a 17 1/2-acre field that holds the last patch of the tiny wild pumpkins for which Calabasas is named.

Oakwood officials said they have spent 15 years searching for a quiet and roomy place to consolidate elementary and secondary campuses now operated separately in North Hollywood.

But nearby homeowners have protested the plan, contending that it would increase traffic problems and lower property values as well as damage the ecology.

About 100 Attend Hearing

“Calabasas” means pumpkins in Spanish. The area was named about 200 years ago by Spanish explorers who discovered vast fields of wild gourds at the southwestern corner of the San Fernando Valley.

About 100 people crowded the commission hearing room Thursday. Commission members inspected the site on Old Topanga Canyon Road last week.

Actor Henry Winkler, an Oakwood trustee, was among seven school supporters who testified in favor of the campus proposal. He said the school, known for its rigorous academic curriculum, had benefited his own children.

School officials told commissioners they have modified their plans to increase landscaping and bermed buffer zones between the proposed 12-building complex and nearby homes. Plans for outdoor bells and public address systems and ball-field lights have been eliminated, they said.

But a dozen residents who spoke against the proposal said the school still would intrude on their neighborhood of expensive homes. The Oakwood site is bordered on one side by Calabasas’ oldest neighborhood, the 1927 Park Moderne subdivision. The town’s newest development, Calabasas Park, is on the other side.

‘They’ll Expand and Grow’

“The issue is much larger than mitigating noise,” homeowner George Pomonik said. “Whatever mitigating steps they take, we know they’ll expand and grow. They’re a high-energy, motivated group.”

The vote to deny the Oakwood application came after commissioners were deadlocked, 2 to 2, on the issue. The panel’s fifth member was absent because of an extended illness.

Commission Chairman Lee Strong, who said he favored the project, changed his vote to end the stalemate so the case can be quickly sent to the county Board of Supervisors for resolution.

Planning commission votes are final unless appealed. In those cases, the supervisors hold their own hearings and can overturn the commission action.

“We’re obviously disappointed,” Oakwood headmaster James Alan Astman said. “We are completely confident that we have a project that the supervisors will see is of the highest caliber.”

Paula Holt, chairman of Oakwood’s board of trustees, said school leaders will seek to “increase the lines of communication” with homeowners before supervisors take up the issue.

“We feel the school would be a wonderful addition to the area,” Holt said after the hearing. “The development would be a positive scenario for both the school and the neighborhood.”