Hodgepodge : Agoura Hills Council Pushes Renewal Plan to Clean Up ‘Tacky, Junky’ Areas of City

Agoura Hills Mayor Jack W. Koenig uses words such as “crappy, tacky and junky” to describe the way parts of his city look.

“This is a trashy community compared to Calabasas, Westlake Village or Thousand Oaks,” Koenig said. “Agoura Hills has become the storage yard for the region. We’re storing everyone’s refuse.”

As he spoke, Koenig pointed to a hodgepodge of mobile homes, junked cars, rusting pipes, garbage trucks and pieces of heavy machinery strewn haphazardly across the landscape along the Ventura Freeway, which traverses the city of 7.9 square miles.

In a city where some hillside houses are selling for as much as $500,000, “people do not want to look down on garbage,” he said.

In an attempt to clean up what Koenig calls “the mess” and to solve the city’s pressing traffic problems and attract commercial developers, the affluent community is joining hundreds of other California cities that have created redevelopment agencies.

Last month, the City Council unanimously voted to authorize City Manager David Carmany to negotiate a contract to form a redevelopment district. Legal documents will soon be drawn up, and council members hope to approve the plan in February, said Paul Williams, director of planning and community development.

The council would serve as the redevelopment agency, with Carmany sitting as executive director and secretary, Koenig said.

Agoura Hills officials say redevelopment could generate $36 million for city improvements through the life of the 30-year project.

The financing is permitted under state laws designed to encourage the upgrading of blighted inner-city areas, but is more commonly used to build shopping malls and hotels in less disadvantaged areas.

Under redevelopment law, the city would declare properties within the redevelopment district blighted. Tax revenue within the area would be frozen, and the city would work with developers to make improvements that would increase the assessed value of the property.

The city, county, schools and other agencies would continue to receive tax revenue at the present level. Additional tax revenue generated by the increased values would go to the redevelopment agency to fund public improvements.

A feasibility study by a Westwood consulting firm, Economics Research Associates, concluded in November that Agoura Hills’ freeway corridor fits the legal test of blight. The report cited jumbled land uses and properties that are not being used to their fullest economic potential.

Although no boundaries have been established for the redevelopment district, the study area covered nearly a one-mile strip straddling the freeway. Zoned for commercial and industrial uses, the land contains no homes.

Koenig blamed haphazard growth along the strip on lax Los Angeles County zoning and development policies before Agoura Hills was incorporated five years ago. He said the county allowed the corridor to grow “like a cancer.”

At the request of the Las Virgenes Unified School District, the redevelopment area would also jog north to include Agoura High School. The school district wants redevelopment money to finance improvements to the high school buildings.

617-Acre Area

Included in the 617-acre area reviewed in the consultant’s report are 267 acres of private land, with an assessed valuation of $47.3 million. Officials say the value would grow to nearly $530 million by the year 2017 if the redevelopment plans succeed. The projection assumes that six sizable commercial developments will be built in the renewal district, Carmany said.

But owners of some of the 38 businesses in the proposed redevelopment zone are likely to object. The city already has ordered the businesses to leave within five years or clean up their properties to comply with a zoning ordinance passed in March.

The storage and equipment rental businesses along the corridor, for instance, are banned by the ordinance.

“A number of the landowners are very old people, and they’ve lived in the area for many years. They don’t appreciate the idea of some Mediterranean-style office building being built on land they’ve owned for 30 years,” said Jess Thomas, owner of an Agoura Hills heavy equipment business.

“I am not, per se, against the redevelopment, but to run 38 places out of business along the freeway is very unconstitutional and bad,” said Melvin A. Adams Sr., 67, owner of Agoura Equipment Rentals.

Owners Would Benefit

But Koenig said business owners such as Adams will benefit from increased property values and low-interest loans that will be available to help them improve their properties.

In the next several months, officials will decide the final boundaries for the project area and hold public hearings. Officials say the work will not get under way, however, until late 1988.

The city already has spent $57,500 on studies and has budgeted an additional $80,000 to cover the costs of setting up the redevelopment agency, Carmany said.

Although eyesores may be the city’s most obvious problem, most of the money raised through the project will go to solve the city’s most pressing problem--traffic.

Officials want to improve outdated freeway interchanges at Chesebro, Kanan and Reyes Adobe roads.

‘Development Held Hostage’

“I see the economic development of the community being held hostage by those 1950s-designed on- and off-ramps,” Carmany said. “Those roads can’t support present traffic or additional traffic to handle the commercial development along the freeway.”

They also want to improve Agoura Road, Driver Avenue and Canwood Street, where there is insufficient parking, a lack of curbs and grading, flooding problems and improper alignment. Cost of the freeway and street repairs alone is estimated at $35 million.

Since the $35 million needed for the traffic improvements is the same amount redevelopment is expected to bring in, Carmany said, the city also expects to use assessment districts, loans and other methods, he said.

City officials also want to bury about six miles of electric utility lines along the freeway at a cost of about $1 million a mile, Williams said.

Eventually, officials hope redevelopment will lure office buildings, small shopping centers, grocery stores and other commercial ventures to the freeway area.

‘Much More Valuable’

“Here you take some of the most valuable land in the county next to the busiest freeway in the world, and what are you using it for?” Koenig said. “This property is much more valuable than being used for storing bricks.”

As part of the plan, several dozen undersized, irregularly shaped commercial lots under separate ownership would be consolidated. The properties, along Roadside Drive, Agoura Road and Canwood Street, would be purchased by the redevelopment agency, consolidated and sold at a discount to developers, officials said.

If necessary, the city is prepared to use eminent domain, a process by which government takes a piece of private property after compensating the owner, Carmany said. Despite their belief that redevelopment will solve the problems along the freeway, Carmany and other officials say they are prepared to face criticism from the county Board of Supervisors.

Although the county does not have veto power over redevelopment projects, supervisors often file legal action seeking to invalidate such plans, said Diane Shamhart, head analyst with the finance division of the county’s chief administrative office.

Tax Money Diverted

The county typically objects because any increase in property tax revenue that it normally would receive is diverted to the redevelopment agencies, Shamhart said. But the county still has to provide police, fire and other services. She said before filing any legal action, the county is likely to ask Agoura Hills for as much as 50% of the tax money generated by the redevelopment project.

Last year, the county received about $20 million in property taxes from Agoura Hills, city officials said.

With or without county approval, Koenig vowed the city will press ahead on redevelopment.

“If we do it correctly--and we’re being very careful--they won’t be able to stop us because we have the legal right to use this tool,” Koenig said.

“They’ll sue us, and we can structure it so we win. A good many of our problems are the result of poor planning and neglect by the county anyway.”