Neighbors’ Criticism of Development Rankles in Westlake Village

Westlake Village officials said Wednesday that they are skeptical of criticism from neighboring Agoura Hills about Westlake North, a proposed 131-acre development near the two cities’ border.

About 100 people showed up at the council’s chambers Tuesday night for a public hearing on a draft environmental impact report on a proposal by Westlake Village Associates for 400 apartments and 1.5 million square feet of commercial space, including two six-story buildings, north of the Ventura Freeway and east of Lindero Canyon Road.

The crowd included many residents of Agoura Hills, along with that town’s city manager and a city councilman.

“The imposition of six-story buildings will not only impact us but will change the character of your city,” Agoura Hills City Councilman Jack W. Koenig said at the hearing.

Skeptical of Comments

But Westlake Village Councilwomen Berniece E. Bennett and Bonnie Klove said they were skeptical of the comments by Koenig and others from Agoura Hills, in view of what they said was that city’s poor record on development.

“The reason we’re having such a horrendous traffic problem at this time is not because of what we have done but because of the surrounding neighbors,” Bennett said, referring to Agoura Hills. “Sometimes we need to clean up our own house before we go to work on somebody else’s.”

“They’re our good neighbors and we want to stay good neighbors,” Klove said. But she added, “It’s very funny that we’re getting so much flak” on the Westlake North proposal “when Agoura Hills and Thousand Oaks have just been building like mad.”

Koenig later disputed the suggestion that development in his city has adversely affected conditions in Westlake Village.

‘Really Isolated’

“They’ve been really isolated from development problems because they came in as a single large piece of land,” Koenig said. “We didn’t have that advantage.”

Westlake Village was incorporated in 1981 as a planned community, partly to avoid inclusion in Agoura Hills, which was in the midst of its own cityhood drive, which succeeded in 1982.

Most of Westlake Village was built by the same developer, Daniel K. Ludwig, whose company is proposing Westlake North on the last large piece of open land in the city. The proposal calls for the six-story buildings, a four-story, 250-room hotel and a 300,000-square-foot shopping center.

The council is not expected to decide on Westlake North until November, after more public hearings.

Surround Cemetery

The project would surround a cemetery, Valley Oaks Memorial Park, on three sides. At Tuesday’s hearing, James D. Price, vice president of Pierce Brothers, which operates the cemetery, said that construction noise could disrupt funeral services and that tall office buildings could intrude on cemetery visitors’ privacy.

The dearth of speakers Tuesday from Westlake Village prompted council members to say they want to hear more from their own constituents.

“We want more input from residents of Westlake Village,” Councilman Irwin A. Shane said.

Mayor Franklin D. Pelletier said after the hearing that although he expects the council to listen to Agoura Hills, “our primary concern will be what is in the best interest of the residents of our city.”