Agoura Hills Wants Public Forum on Project

The Agoura Hills City Council has recommended holding a town hall meeting so that a Maryland developer can show plans for luxury homes and a large commercial development on 474 acres next to the city.

The developer, Potomac Investment Associates, has told city officials that it is interested in the city annexing the property, Paul A. Williams, director of planning and community development for Agoura Hills, told the council Wednesday. The land is in an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County.

The community forum is expected to be held in late November or early December, said Peter N. Kyros Jr., general counsel for Potomac.

Kyros would not comment on annexation or other details of the proposal, which calls for 94 houses on 134.9 acres and commercial property on 87.3 acres north of the Ventura Freeway between Liberty Canyon and Palo Comado Canyon roads. The firm has not specified its plans for 123 acres. The remaining acres would be set aside for roads and parkland in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

Potomac has also proposed building about 1,500 homes and a tournament golf course on the nearby Jordan Ranch in Ventura County. Some environmentalists and homeowners oppose the Jordan Ranch proposal because of its density and a proposed land swap with the National Park Service.

The park service would give Potomac land for a four-lane road to be built across a corner of Cheeseboro Canyon, which is part of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, to allow access to the Jordan Ranch development. In exchange, Potomac would give the park service other land in the Jordan Ranch parcel.

At Wednesday’s council meeting, conservationist John Perry of the Palo Comado Coalition, which opposes Potomac’s plans for Jordan Ranch, urged the council to link the 474-acre parcel with the Jordan Ranch proposal.

The 474-acre property and the Jordan Ranch are separated by the national park, but the two would be linked by Potomac’s proposed road, which critics say will cause excessive noise, traffic and environmental damage.

But neither parcel is within the jurisdiction of Agoura Hills. The city has made no formal plans to annex Potomac’s 474 acres, which are directly to the east of town. City Manager David N. Carmany described the town hall meeting as the first step in that process.

“Someday that property will develop,” Carmany said . “It’s just a question of how it will develop and who will make the development decisions.”

Potomac bought the property this year from Encino real estate agent Jerry Y. Oren, whose proposals for more than 2,000 homes in 1983 and for more than 1,000 condominiums and nearly 1 million square feet of industrial and warehouse space in 1985 were both rejected by the county. Oren’s plan drew widespread community opposition.

Potomac’s 94-home proposal is far less crowded than Oren’s, but city officials estimated that its commercial portion would encompass 1.5 million square feet. Kyros would not confirm that figure.

Williams told the council that a commercial development of that size “would significantly overwhelm the streets, thus demanding an evaluation of the street system.”