Incorporation Drive Snares Reluctant Developers : Calabasas: Cityhood proponents are jubilant as LAFCO excludes only one of nine builders from the proposed boundaries.

Six developers were rebuffed Wednesday in their attempt to win exclusion from the boundaries of the proposed city of Calabasas.

The Los Angeles County Local Agency Formation Commission, the government panel charged with overseeing incorporation proposals, agreed to exclude only one of nine developers who sought to be outside the city boundaries.

Two other developers withdrew their requests.

The successful developer was the Los Angeles-based Johnston Group, which has one more office building to construct in a business park off the Ventura Freeway.

Cityhood supporters hailed the decision as a victory.

“I believe we’re over most of our severe hurdles and don’t anticipate any problems will show up,” said Bob Hill, president of the Calabasas Cityhood Committee.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, which sets the election date, is expected to hold a hearing on the issue in the next few weeks.

If approved by the supervisors and by area voters, the new city of Calabasas, population 27,000, would be about 11 square miles located in the Santa Monica Mountains west of the San Fernando Valley.

Hill and other cityhood advocates finally allowed themselves to laugh, shake one another’s hands and even hug on Wednesday--the most emotion they have shown since commission hearings began July 11.

Because their cityhood drives failed in 1981 and 1988, they have said they do not want to celebrate prematurely.

The Johnston Group tempered the otherwise jubilant mood.

Not only was the company’s Malibu Canyon Business Park/Corporate Center exempt from the proposed city, but on Tuesday it filed suit against the commission for approving Calabasas’ independence without first conducting an environmental review.

Calvin H. Johnston, the company’s general partner, said he filed the Superior Court lawsuit out of concern that a new city would block construction of roads crucial to a regional transportation plan.

But cityhood proponents said they did not consider the lawsuit a serious threat and expected incorporation to be placed on the March, 1991, ballot for voters’ approval.

Most of the developers seeking exclusion said they were already applying for building approvals from the county and were loathe to begin the process with a new bureaucracy.

They also said they feared that a new City Council would enact a building moratorium, delaying their projects and costing them substantial sums of money.

Commission attorney Clark Alsop acknowledged that newly incorporated cities can freeze construction for as long as 30 months while they adopt a general plan.

During the last few weeks, the cityhood committee--concerned that the exemptions would leave town fathers with little control over local land use--met with the builders to persuade them otherwise.

In rejecting most builders’ requests, the commission agreed with cityhood advocates that the properties’ exclusion would carve up the proposed city, leaving Calabasas without cohesive boundaries.

Commissioners also noted that several of the developers had already received county planning approvals that would be difficult for a city to challenge.

Meanwhile, two developers--Ring Financial, and a joint venture between Cabot, Cabot & Forbes and the Currey-Riach Co.--delighted cityhood champions by withdrawing their exclusion requests.

“This is a very classy group of people you have here seeking incorporation,” said attorney Douglas Ring, who represented his uncle Ellis Ring’s company. “I am genuinely impressed with them.”

Johnston, who owns four shopping centers in Calabasas, said the only purpose of his lawsuit was to ensure that Calabasas wouldn’t thwart regional transportation plans.

He said Ventura Freeway alternative routes were crucial to his properties and his tenants.

But cityhood advocates noted that they had worked out a transportation agreement with the county that would provide an alternative to the freeway.

And committee member Dennis Washburn suggested that the suit was really designed to stall incorporation until Johnston wins approval for his business park’s eighth and final structure.

Planned at eight stories--five above the level of the freeway and three below--the mid-rise office building would be the tallest in the business park, Johnston said.

Washburn said its height would be precedent-setting in the area and bound to stir controversy.

Although Johnston denied that approval of the final building was his true goal, his attorney, Rogert L. Stanard, acknowledged that delays could be “a side benefit” of the suit.