A Glimpse of the Future : Residents Take to the Hills in Effort to Slow Development

Leaders of neighborhoods along the south rim of the San Fernando Valley climbed the highest hill in Calabasas on Thursday to catch a glimpse of the future.

They didn’t like what they saw.

To the north and south, they gazed down upon bulldozers busily carving more than 1,400 home sites in two small valleys about a mile apart.

To the west, they looked out over oak-studded hillsides that have been divvied up by subdividers hoping to build up to 4,227 homes and condominiums.

To the east, they viewed the Ventura Freeway, choked with morning traffic that had slowed to a crawl as it meandered through Woodland Hills and disappeared into the smoggy haze beyond.

“All of this is an abomination to nature,” Calabasas resident Richard Tarlow said. “I say that even though I live here, and my house is contributing to it.”

Tarlow is a director of the Calabasas Park Homeowners Assn. His group had called the heads of other homeowner organizations between North Hollywood and Agoura to the hilltop to announce the Valley’s latest slow-growth effort.

Their target is Los Angeles County’s development policy. They said county supervisors, who have the final word on projects in unincorporated areas, bend over backward to accommodate builders.

“You’re going to have a collar of ill-planned, county-approved projects around the Valley before they’re through,” said David Brown, president of the 15-group Las Virgenes Homeowners Federation.

That collar will start choking the Valley when the new subdivisions begin funneling thousands of new cars onto freeways and surface streets, Brown said.

The fledgling slow-growth coalition said the most immediate threat is from a 1,500-home project proposed for 1,288 acres of rangeland west of Calabasas Park. That subdivision, which would include a 1.4-million-square-foot commercial center, is being planned by the Baldwin Development Co. of Irvine.

Calabasas residents, who have been fighting the project for months, say the county master plan calls for only 138 homes on the rolling site. They have criticized builder James Baldwin for helping defeat their recent Calabasas cityhood campaign by demanding that his acreage be kept out of any future city.

“There’s broad-based homeowner opposition to the Baldwin project,” said Myra Turek, president of the Calabasas Park Homeowners Assn. She said the project would add 40,000 vehicle trips a day onto the Ventura Freeway, “making a mockery” of the $22-million freeway-widening project now under way.

“The impact on traffic flow on the Ventura Freeway is of concern to homeowners from Agoura to the Hollywood Hills,” she said.

Turek said Supervisor Mike Antonovich and nine contenders for his 5th District post in Tuesday’s election were invited to attend Thursday. Four of the nine showed up, but Antonovich did not.

The Studio City Residents Assn., the North Hollywood Residents Assn., the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn., the Encino Property Owners Assn., Homeowners of Encino, the Tarzana Property Owners Assn. and the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization have voiced opposition to the Baldwin project.

Gordon Murley, president of the Woodland Hills group, said county supervisors have stalled controversial development requests in Calabasas and Topanga Canyon until after next week’s election.

Leaders of Antonovich’s campaign disputed those contentions late Thursday.

“They didn’t invite Mike,” Roger Scott, Antonovich’s campaign spokesman, said of the meeting. “And the Baldwin project hasn’t even gone to county planning yet, so they’re wrong right off the top.”

Scott said much Valley crowding is due to developments approved by the city of Los Angeles and Ventura County. He said Antonovich is for “managed” growth.

“What do you do when somebody wants to buy a house?” Scott asked. “What do you do, put up a fence or say people can’t have babies?”

Those joining the coalition said Thursday that there have to be future limits.

“We have to protect what is left of our life style,” Tarlow said. “You just draw a line and say, ‘All right, enough is enough.’ ”