Builder Agrees to Drop Road Extensions in Calabasas

Calabasas homeowners have won a partial victory in their struggle to block construction of new roads through rugged ranchland, which they say would spoil the country setting they live in.

Residents have persuaded an Irvine-based land developer to scrap plans to build a multimillion-dollar commuter freeway bypass around the Calabasas Grade by extending Parkway Calabasas or Calabasas Road westward through Calabasas Park.

Now all they have to do is persuade Los Angeles County transportation planners to go along.

For some 20 years, county traffic experts counted on at least one of the roads being extended two miles through mountainous grazing land to link the San Fernando Valley with Las Virgenes Road and serve as a bypass around the Ventura Freeway crossing of the steep grade.

County road officials decided that the eventual developer of a 1,300-acre parcel south of the freeway and east of Las Virgenes Road would pay for the project.

But Calabasas Park homeowners have opposed roadway extensions for fear that commuter and beach traffic would disrupt their expensive residential community.

Company Agrees

After private negotiations with homeowner representatives, executives of the Baldwin Co. have agreed to eliminate the extension of both Parkway Calabasas and Calabasas Road from their master plan, said Robert Burns, project manager for the company.

Removing Parkway Calabasas will reduce the number of new homes that can be built in the interior of the huge tract. Scrapping Calabasas Road will eliminate a 30-acre commercial project that had been proposed for a small valley next to the Ventura Freeway at the base of the grade.

“We look at the scaled-down project and elimination of the road as a way of coming up with a project the community will support,” Burns said.

Because of the rough terrain in the interior of Baldwin’s site, extension of Parkway Calabasas would have cost up to $66 million. Estimates of the cost of extending Calabasas Road were about $12 million.

Until now, Baldwin executives had wanted to extend Calabasas Road but not Parkway Calabasas.

Eliminating both from the master plan “is a very strong step in the right direction,” Myra Turek, president of the Calabasas Park Homeowners Assn., said Monday.

Opponents of the road extensions contend that an extension of Mureau Road on the north side of the freeway, already almost completed by another developer, will provide a sufficient bypass over the Calabasas Grade.

County Undecided

County officials said Monday they were not convinced that one or both of the roads should not be completed, however. County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who represents the Calabasas area, has said he will support the homeowners’ proposal only if it can be shown that most residents are opposed to the roadway extensions, and that using Mureau Road as the bypass satisfies county transportation experts.

“With Mureau, you’re talking about a road that begins on the north side of the freeway and makes a sharp right and then a left turn,” said David Vannatta, chief planning deputy to Antonovich.

Vannatta pointed out that Mureau Road ends with a connection to Calabasas Road after its zig-zag atop the Calabasas Grade. “Does that provide the kind of traffic circulation that is needed?” he asked.

County road planners are also worried, said Jean Granucci, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Works.

“We’re currently doing our own Ventura Freeway traffic model that will predict traffic volumes based on general plan build-out estimates,” Granucci said. “The preliminary information is the freeway will be overloaded there in the future, and there will be a need for additional east-west routes.”

She said county officials are investigating the need for another alternative route on the north side of the freeway in addition to Mureau Road.