Panel OKs Plan for 160 Homes on Agoura Fair Site

Despite impassioned pleas from homeowners, environmentalists and fair-goers, the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission on Thursday narrowly approved a developer’s request to build a gated community on the longtime site of the Renaissance Pleasure Faire.

By a 3-2 decision, the commission recommended that the county Board of Supervisors grant an area-plan amendment, zone change and permits to allow developer Brian Heller to build 160 luxury homes on the 320-acre site in Agoura.

The land’s owner, Art Whizin, has rented the site to the fair’s sponsors each spring for the last 23 years, and has agreed to do so this year for the final time. Rainy weather forced postponement of the fair, which was scheduled to open April 23. It has been rescheduled to start April 30 and run each weekend for six weeks.

Heller has pledged to begin grading as soon as the fair ends.

Project opponents pledged to appeal the panel’s decision to the Board of Supervisors, which could modify or overturn the commission’s decision.

But Sue Nelson, president of Friends of the Santa Monica Mountains and Seashore, said: “I don’t see much hope” in that option. “I think we’ll have to go to court” in an attempt to stop the project, Nelson said. The cost of fighting the matter in court “puts a tremendous burden on the public. You’re looking at a cold $100,000,” she said.

“For me, the loss was more than the oak trees, but (also) any faith that the local government is going to respond to the public at all,” Nelson said.

‘Irresponsible Decision’

Kevin Patterson, son of the fair’s founder, Phyllis Patterson, called the commission’s action “an irresponsible decision” that fails to take into account “the feelings of the local community. The developer has a right to develop his land, but not at this density and not with this wholesale destruction of the property.”

The decision came after three public hearings packed with fair supporters and environmentalists. Before Thursday’s meeting, about 50 project opponents demonstrated outside the Hall of Records, carrying signs and placards against the project.

Commission President Betty Fisher and Vice President Clinton Ternstrom voted against the project, arguing that it should be modified to eliminate steep grading and the destruction of oak trees on the western portion of the property.

“For me, the project is too intense,” Fisher said. “I don’t like the steep ground cuts and the destruction of oak trees and ridgelines.”

But Commissioners Lee Strong and Sadie Clark argued that it is unfair to require Heller to change the project’s design after three public hearings.

“I personally feel that the problems have been properly addressed. This is a good, well-planned development,” Clark said.

The commission, as a condition of approval, ordered Heller to permanently dedicate open space on the property to the county, state or federal government to ensure that it will not be developed. The commission also told Heller he may be required to redesign two lots that contain nearly 40 oak trees or leave the lots undeveloped.

Project engineer Alden Chase said 391, or 71%, of the site’s oak trees will be saved. Thirteen of the 158 trees that will be removed are dead, and 47 are in fair or poor condition, he added. About half of the land will remain open, he testified.

Heller said that although public automobile traffic will be barred from the development, equestrian and hiking trails within the project will be open to non-residents.

Serena Friedman, a resident who lives near the site and a member of Agoura Homeowners for the Preservation of the Environment, testified at the hearing that the proposed project “violates the sanctity of our rural life style with tract housing” and will cause “the wholesale destruction of our terrain.”

Other opponents voiced concern about emergency access during fires and floods, erosion from the project adding silt to nearby Malibu Lake and increased traffic on winding, unlighted Cornell Road.

The commission’s approval of the project will further hamper efforts to purchase the site as part of the Santa Monica Mountains Recreation Area, Nelson said. The park is next to Paramount Ranch, which was purchased by the National Park Service in 1980.

“I feel bad that the park is going to have a major development looming over Paramount Ranch,” said Joe Edmiston, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

The National Park Service and the conservancy want the fair site preserved as park space and have pledged to help buy the property, but no funds are available.

The Historic Oaks Foundation, a group formed by Kevin Patterson more than a year ago, has been seeking donations to buy the land. The group so far has raised only $35,000 of the $14 million Whizin is asking for the property, Patterson said.

Patterson’s group has hired a firm to seek funds from major corporations, foundations and environmental groups. But that effort has been delayed until June, when the group expects to receive tax-exempt status.