Last-Ditch Offer Would Cut Project : Westlake Village: Planners of apartment complex offer to reduce its square footage in exchange for council approval.

In a last-minute effort to cement a deal with the city of Westlake Village, a developer offered Monday to reduce the controversial Westlake North residential and commercial project to levels already allowed in the city’s general plan.

The City Council is scheduled to make a decision on the project Wednesday.

A representative of Westlake Village Associates, which wanted to build 1.5 million square feet, called council members on Monday, offering to reduce the project by 86,000 square feet, Councilman Kenneth E. Rufener said.

The reduction, although only 6% of the original proposal, is significant, Rufener said, because it brings the project’s square footage into accord with the city’s General Plan for the 129-acre property north of the Ventura Freeway and east of Lindero Canyon Road.

In addition, the city last week released documents disclosing the concessions Westlake Village Associates would make in exchange for approval of Westlake North.

The firm, run by Daniel K. Ludwig, would agree not to try to develop the golf course it owns in Westlake Village, in addition to paying nearly $6.5 million for street improvements and giving the city $3.5 million the city could use to build a library. The firm also would provide a 4.3-acre park with completed softball and soccer fields, bleachers, lighting and parking.

“This is probably the finest deal that any city around here has ever obtained,” Rufener said.

“We’re certainly moving in the right direction,” said Douglas R. Yarrow, a critic of the project who was elected to the council this month. He and fellow Councilman-elect James E. Emmons do not take office until December. Yarrow suggested that the maximum building height of five stories--which exceeds the General Plan limit--be reduced to four stories.

Charles H. Fry, a representative of the developer, said the firm has not determined whether the reductions would result in four-story buildings instead of five stories.

“Our constituents are very concerned about the height of the buildings,” Councilwoman Berneice E. Bennett said. “It would certainly sit better with our constituents to have four stories instead of five.”

Bennett added that the proposed concessions form “a good package for the city.” The $3.5-million payment was the fruit of months of negotiations in which the developer first offered $300,000, she said.

Preservation of the golf course was “something we desperately wanted here,” Rufener said.

Asked about the last-minute timing of the developer’s latest concessions, Rufener said: “It’s pretty obvious that he doesn’t want this delayed.”

He noted that Emmons had said during the council campaign that the project should go “back to the drawing board.”