Group Sues Calabasas Over Housing Project
An environmental group has sued the city of Calabasas, claiming that the City Council did not follow proper procedures when it gave preliminary approval to Micor Ventures’ proposal to build a gated community of 250 luxury homes.
The suit, filed Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court by Save Open Space, claims that the council had no authority to more than triple the number of homes allowed under present zoning on 939 acres east of Las Virgenes Road.
Micor’s proposed project, called the Enclave, is outside the city limits in Los Angeles County, but Calabasas officials are trying to annex the site. Toward that goal, the city gave preliminary approval to Micor’s plans in April. If annexation is approved by the Local Agency Formation Commission later this year, the project would need final approval from the city.
But Save Open Space leaders charge in the suit that the city has no power outside its boundaries and that the report, prepared to address environmental concerns, was shoddy and failed to seriously investigate alternative uses for the site. The suit asks the court to reject the report and order the city to rescind its action.
Calabasas officials had not reviewed the suit Tuesday and declined to comment on its allegations, saying only that the city followed accepted practices.
“I believe the city took all the necessary steps and all the proper steps in approving the project,” Mayor Pro Tem Marvin Lopata said. “I don’t know what they are suing us for. Everything we did there was just reason for.”
Micor President Michael Rosenfeld said the suit is “malicious, abusive and inflammatory” and was only a way for Save Open Space to “ventilate their frustrations because the collective community, including other environmentalists, did not share their views.”
Environmentalists have been divided over the project, proposed for a canyon between the Ventura Freeway and Soka University.
The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a state agency, has praised the project as sensitive to the environment because it would cluster houses on the site, leaving open space for a wildlife corridor.
Save Open Space, however, says areas being saved from development are not the most ecologically important in the canyon, and hints that the city and Micor had negotiated the deal behind closed doors.
It is believed that the project could allow the city and the conservancy to block expansion of nearby Soka University through a complex arrangement that would restrict access to the Japanese-owned school. The city has repeatedly opposed Soka’s plans.
Save Open Space leaders said Tuesday that they filed suit to prevent a bad precedent. Siegfried Othmer charged that if the Micor project is built, it would send a signal to other developers that they, too, could build more than is allowed, thus undermining the city’s plans for the area.
Othmer said it is important to preserve the integrity of the city’s General Plan, which will guide development into the next century. Calabasas, which incorporated last year to wrest development control from the county, is in the process of formulating its first General Plan.
