Mountains or Molehills? : Calabasas Cityhood Backers Contest Builder’s Right to Exclude 1,300 Acres of Ranchland

Calabasas incorporation leaders, anxious to protect the boundaries of their proposed 14-square-mile city, have challenged a developer’s bid to cut out the community’s 1,300-acre heart.

Cityhood backers said Friday that the Irvine-based Baldwin Co. has no right to request removal of steep ranchland because the firm does not own it--and the actual landowner is not seeking exclusion.

Retention of the 2 1/2-square-mile undeveloped site, south of the Ventura Freeway and east of Las Virgenes Road--near the center of the planned city--is crucial to the incorporation effort, incorporation committee members said.

Without the land, a nearby commercial strip and three neighborhoods with about 2,000 homes in west Calabasas will be cut off and likely eliminated from the city limits before an incorporation vote can be held next year, they said.

Incorporation of Calabasas was approved Wednesday by the Local Agency Formation Commission, a Los Angeles County agency that oversees the creation of new cities. The cityhood application must also be approved by county supervisors before an election is scheduled.

Baldwin officials said that they requested exclusion of the acreage from the boundaries because of fears that cityhood will stall or torpedo their proposed multimillion-dollar development.

Special Hearing

But cityhood leaders said they will demand that Baldwin’s request be rejected when LAFCO members consider it at a special Nov. 18 hearing.

“Baldwin doesn’t own the property,” said Dennis Washburn, a vice president of the Calabasas cityhood committee. “You buy the property, then you say you have a financial and possessory interest in it.”

The 1,300-acre site is owned by the Southern California Edison Co. and Bechtel Group Inc., according to officials for the utility.

Lewis Phelps, manager of corporate communications for Edison, said Baldwin officials “don’t have the standing to speak on behalf of the Edison Co. They are not the owners of the property yet.”

Edison, which owns 79%, manages the property through a subsidiary. Bechtel owns the rest, said Jack Moriarty, vice president of Mission Land, the management subsidiary. He said the partnership will not take sides on the cityhood issue.

“We don’t want to be on either side of it,” Moriarty said. “We’re absolutely neutral.”

Added Phelps: “It’s a matter for local citizens to decide.”

But a Baldwin official defended the withdrawal request Friday.

“We believe we’re on firm ground,” said James M. Harter, director of planning for Baldwin. “We have a vested interest in the property. Whatever Edison has done, they’ve given us the authority to act on behalf of that property.”

Harter said his company entered into escrow with Edison and Bechtel in mid-1986. Terms of the deal specify that escrow will close at an undefined date linked to the approval of building plans for the site. He declined to reveal the purchase price.

EIR Submitted

Several months ago, Baldwin filed for a county general plan amendment, zone change and tentative tract map approval, he said. More recently, it submitted an environmental impact report for county review.

He said his company hopes to obtain the approvals by the end of the year. Escrow could close shortly after that, Harter said.

The county approvals, however, would not be binding on the new Calabasas city council if cityhood were approved by voters in June, he said.

“When an elected council sits, historically what’s happened is they immediately declare a moratorium and then start their own review of a general plan,” Harter said. A combination of a moratorium and writing a master plan can take up to four years, he said.

Baldwin hopes to break ground in late 1988 for its planned 1,500 luxury, single-family houses and 70-acre commercial development. Harter said the project will be an extension of the upscale Calabasas Park community.

“We don’t oppose the incorporation. We have an interest in being able to proceed as rapidly as possible,” he said, adding that the company will consider annexing its land to the city after construction starts. “We view that as an advantage both to the county and to the new city.”

Meanwhile, LAFCO’s position on the land ownership remained unclear.

Michi Takahashi, executive administrative assistant for the commission, said Friday that state law authorizes landowners, officials “or other interested persons” to seek deletions from commission-authorized city boundaries.

“It seems to cover anybody. There’s nothing in the section saying a person requesting a change in the boundary has to own the land,” she said.

Takahashi said the law does not spell out criteria for LAFCO members to use in considering land-withdrawal requests. She said her agency does not keep statistics on withdrawal applications.

But commission Chairman Kenneth I. Chappell said ownership could be a key issue when the Baldwin request is reviewed.

“As I look at things, if you don’t own it, how can you make a request to have something one way or another?” he asked Friday. “If you don’t own it, what right do you have to make any request?”

Chappell said his panel has “gone both ways” on past exclusion requests. “We left some in and left some out in Santa Clarita and Agoura Hills.”

Before the ownership issue was raised Wednesday, several LAFCO members made it clear that they were leaning toward granting withdrawal requests in Calabasas.

Requests Filed Late

Six exclusion requests--for sites ranging in size from Baldwin’s 1,300 acres to the small Woodland Park Mobile Estates, a mobile home park on Topanga Canyon Boulevard--were received.

Commissioner Henri F. Pellissier said early confusion over Calabasas’ proposed budget prompted the dissident landowners to file requests late, after keeping quiet during a July public hearing.

“In fairness to the people who are asking for exclusion, they were led to believe that it would not fly financially,” Pellissier said of the cityhood proposal. The developers were led to believe that incorporation would not happen, he said at the hearing.

Commissioner Peter F. Schabarum agreed: “That, in and of itself, leaves room for a challenge, I’d say.”

On Friday, Commissioner Thomas E. Jackson said cityhood backers had plenty of time “to sit down with these people asking to be deleted and have the opportunity to change their minds.”

Cityhood supporters said they will do just that.

“After all, 47 1/2% of the residents of Woodland Park Mobile Estates signed our petition in favor of cityhood,” said Doris La Violette, an incorporation committee vice president.