Agoura Hills Plan Could Block 4-Lane Highway Through Park

The Agoura Hills City Council may take action that will erect a roadblock in the path of a controversial Los Angeles County plan to build a four-lane highway through federal parkland, city officials disclosed Monday.

The council is scheduled to decide Wednesday whether to give away easements allowing the extension of Thousand Oaks Boulevard through the semi-rural Old Agoura neighborhood, according to the council’s agenda, which was made public Monday.

The extension would become a key link in the county’s plan to run a four-lane boulevard through the National Park Service’s Cheeseboro Canyon Park and east to Victory Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley.

A giveaway of the city’s existing 100-foot-wide easement would form a lasting obstacle to building a four-lane road on the uncompleted one-mile stretch of Thousand Oaks Boulevard, which would reach the border of the parkland.

The council would retain the right to build a two-lane, 50-foot-wide local street in the area, although the city has no such plans.

If the council approves the resolution at its regular meeting Wednesday night, “it will force the county to do what it has to do, which is find an alternative route,” said David M. Brown, a Calabasas conservationist and community leader who has been a leading critic of the county’s planned route through the park.

Officials of the county Department of Public Works have said an extended Thousand Oaks Boulevard would provide a needed east-west alternative to the Ventura Freeway.

But the Agoura Hills general plan calls for keeping commercial traffic out of residential areas, and an extension of Thousand Oaks Boulevard would violate that part of the plan, City Councilwoman Fran Pavley said.