Panel OKs 1,000-Acre Calabasas Annexation : Growth: Critics say a planned luxury housing project will damage the wildlife habitat. Proponents contend it will preserve open space.

A Los Angeles County board Wednesday allowed Calabasas to annex nearly 1,000 acres for a luxury housing project that critics complain will severely damage sensitive wildlife habitat, but which defenders say actually preserves open space.

Some city and park officials have also said they hope that the annexation could prevent or limit the proposed expansion of nearby Soka University--a subject of fierce debate in the neighborhood--by restricting the Japanese school’s access to Las Virgenes Road.

The decision by the Local Agency Formation Commission is a victory for Micor Ventures, which wants to build 250 homes on the land east of Las Virgenes Road, and for Calabasas officials, who had targeted the property for annexation when the city incorporated last year.

“It’s like a heart or an arm that is not attached to the city of Calabasas,” said County Supervisor Ed Edelman, a member of the commission.

Although most of Micor’s 938 acres fell within the city when its boundaries were originally proposed, the tract was deleted at the last minute because of a mapping error. As a result, the property was surrounded on three sides by Calabasas, and Micor President Michael Rosenfeld pledged to seek annexation and process his permits through the city.

Opponents of the housing project have blasted city officials for their apparent support of the project, accusing council members of giving Micor preferential treatment and of abandoning the environmental platforms on which most were elected.

To clear the way for the project, the Calabasas City Council last month tripled the amount of building allowed on the property.

Siegfried Othmer, head of the environmental group Save Open Space, said the zoning increase set a dangerous precedent, because the city is creating a plan to guide development into the next century.

“This project will in fact determine the General Plan,” said Othmer, whose group has sued the city in Superior Court over the project’s environmental clearance. Othmer and other environmentalists, including the Sierra Club, complain that the houses will destroy sensitive habitat for deer, mountain lions and other wildlife.

But city officials point out that Micor is donating 700 acres to parks agencies to be preserved as open space and has worked with environmentalists to create a wildlife corridor through the property. “We are getting a 10% increase in land, but we are only getting another 600 to 700 people, which is not 10%,” Councilwoman Lesley Devine said. The project’s residents would increase the city’s population by about 2%.

Criticism of the project increased earlier this year when news leaked that some city and parks officials said they hoped the annexation of Micor’s property could affect Soka’s proposed expansion.

The Japanese-owned school sits at Las Virgenes Road and Mulholland Highway on land long coveted by the National Park Service for a headquarters and visitors center. Soka officials want to expand the school to 4,000 students, but city and parks officials oppose any further development on the site.

As part of Wednesday’s annexation, the city gained control of two-lane Las Virgenes Road, the primary route between Soka’s campus and the Ventura Freeway. Officials hinted earlier that the city could refuse to widen the road, thus pinching off Soka’s access and restricting the size of any expansion, because the school could not secure permits to expand unless it could show that the road would be widened to handle the increased traffic.

“Nobody in Calabasas wants Las Virgenes to be a superhighway,” Devine said. “If there are extra lanes, they will probably be for bicycles.”

But Soka spokesman Jeff Ourvan said: “We don’t think the annexation affects us one way or the other,” explaining that the school’s current expansion plans would not require widening Las Virgenes Road.