Never-Used Stretch of Road Does a Little Traveling of Its Own

It is, the poet could say, the road least traveled.

Indeed, not traveled at all.

A stretch of Agoura Road--never opened because of county officials’ concerns about potential landslides--has been found by a recently completed geological study to be moving and in need of expensive stabilization repairs before it would be safe for public use.

Los Angeles County officials said they plan to meet with the developer soon to discuss the stretch of road which was cut into a virgin hill between Liberty Canyon and Lost Hills roads.

But angry residents of the area say the problems with the road could have been anticipated and avoided. They claim that the county failed to adequately study the geological conditions before approving construction plans for the potentially unstable site.

“Patches of this hill were popping out and sliding before the grading was done. The signs were there,” said Dave Brown, a Valley College physics professor and vice president of the Las Virgenes Homeowners Federation.

“Frankly, any experienced geologist should have recognized that there was a problem there. Why didn’t they?”

The study by the Las Virgenes Water District found that the hill is creeping toward the road and pushing the road up and to the north, toward the Ventura Freeway. The study showed that the road had moved about 1.5 inches in the month following the March rains.

Agoura Hills City Geologist Jim Slosson said the problem is that the rock hill on which the road is built was shattered “way back in time” and is inherently unstable.

Slosson said the problem could have been anticipated and avoided if the hill had been thoroughly studied before construction began, but that county regulations--in contrast to those of the city of Los Angeles--do not routinely require in-depth investigations of geological conditions on potential construction sites.

“This easily could have been avoided by detailed studies, but the detailed studies are not required in standard practice,” Slosson said. “The technology is there, but it is not used.”

Brown said, “This is a part of a pattern.” He said that at least six housing developments in Agoura Hills that were approved by county officials before the city’s incorporation have had problems with landslides or cracking.

County public works officials denied that they are too lax in studying geological conditions.

“Our requirements are very stringent. We do a very thorough review,” said Jean Granucci, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Works. “This was an unusual situation.”

The Agoura Road connection was constructed under the supervision of Cabot, Cabot & Forbes, which took over the project from Currey-Riach, Granucci said. Currey-Riach had agreed to build the road so county officials would approve a plan to construct 1,152 homes and condominiums on an adjacent tract, she said.

In the early 1980s, some residents of a nearby housing development that had experienced problems with landslides in the past raised the specter of landslides and road instability before the work began, Brown said. But county officials did not take their concerns seriously, he said.

To build the road, engineers cut away a virgin hill--leaving a steep slope. The Las Virgenes Water District also relocated a water pipeline that had been buried underneath the hill to the top of the new ridge, said Diane Eaton, a water district spokeswoman.

After the road was completed in the summer of 1988, county officials decided that it was a landslide hazard and refused to approve it for public use.

In February, 1989, earth movement on the newly created ridge caused a 30-inch water line to break, sending 18 million gallons of water cascading down the hill onto the road. The pipelines have since been moved temporarily to the side of the road.

Granucci said that county officials plan to meet soon with representatives from Cabot, Cabot & Forbes and the water district to discuss stabilizing the hill and finding another place for the water lines so they do not cause dangerous leaks and are not damaged by traffic if the road is opened.

She said the developer will be responsible for carrying out and paying for the work. The developer could not be reached for comment.

“Our goal is to get the road open,” she said. “We are looking for the developer to come to us with a solution that is mutually agreeable.”

Slosson speculated that the hill could be stabilized by re-cutting the slope of the hill to a less steep angle, which he estimated would cost more than $1 million.