Supervisors Approve Plans for New Calabasas Park

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved plans Tuesday for Gates Canyon Park, the first public park to be built in Calabasas in decades.

Plans call for the seven-acre park to be completed in February. The park will have an activities building, two lighted tennis courts, a children’s play area, volleyball court, picnic and open play areas, said Etsel Yamasaki, a landscape architect with the county Department of Parks and Recreation.

For years, Calabasas residents have complained about the lack of parks in the area. Many activists said Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who represents the area, and the rest of the Board of Supervisors did not make parks a priority.

At the first community planning session for the park two years ago, sheriff’s deputies were called to protect Antonovich from angry protesters. Members of a grass-roots group, formed to oust Antonovich from office, picketed the meeting and accused him of using the proposed park as a “political ploy” to hide his poor record on park development. Antonovich has maintained that he is a strong advocate of parks.

Doris LaViolette, treasurer of the Malibu Canyon Homeowners, said she is thrilled that the park will soon be built, adding that it has been a real hardship for families who have no place where their children can play.

“In order to go to a playground with the children, very often we go to McDonalds--they have a playground,” LaViolette said.

The park, which derives its name from the canyon it sits in, will be north of the Ventura Freeway, east of Las Virgenes Road and bounded by Thousand Oaks Boulevard on the south and east.

The park, on land provided by a developer, will cost $900,000 to build.