Supervisors Order Malibu Terrace Home Plan Scaled Back : Development: Damage to an ecological area is feared. The builder says a smaller project is unprofitable.

The long and tortured tale of the Malibu Terrace housing project continues--the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has ordered the developers to scale back their plan because it would harm a sensitive ecological area in the hills near Calabasas.

The action was a victory for environmentalists and Calabasas residents, who opposed the project along Las Virgenes Road just north of the Ventura Freeway because it called for three times as many dwelling units as would be allowed by the county’s land-use plan.

“You need sensitive development,” said Supervisor Ed Edelman, who represents the area and led Thursday’s 3-0 vote against the project. “I think the project as it is proposed cannot be justified.”

Las Virgenes Properties of Sunnyvale had proposed to build 341 houses and apartments on 494 acres within one of the county’s 61 Significant Ecological Areas, or SEAs, which were identified in 1980 to preserve what remains of the county’s diverse natural environment.

The county’s General Plan allows a maximum of 112 houses on the property. Edelman ordered Las Virgenes Properties to devise a project more in accordance with the plan. But executives from the firm said they needed to build a bigger project to make the endeavor profitable.

H. Randall Stoke, an attorney representing the developer, said after Thursday’s hearing that a smaller project likely would be financially unfeasible. He further predicted that even if his client adhered precisely to the county’s plan, the destruction of habitat would be significant.

For many in the Las Virgenes area, Malibu Terrace has represented everything that is wrong with the process by which the county approves development.

In 1991, the County Regional Planning Commission approved the project 3 to 2, ignoring public opposition and the recommendation of its own staff. That proposal was a scaled-back version of a plan commissioners rejected in 1990, which included 1,700 apartments, 116 houses and 60,000 square feet of commercial space.

Earlier this year, the proposal came back before the commission so it could consider a set of overriding conditions, or reasons the project should be approved. But this time the commission rejected the project 2 to 2, with one abstention.

For much of the time the project has been under consideration by the county, it has been tied to the construction of Thousand Oaks Boulevard. Under previous plans, Las Virgenes Properties would have dedicated the right of way through its property and given the county $4 million for building the road. Residents vigorously oppose the road, but the county wants it as an alternate to the Ventura Freeway.

But on Thursday, Stoke said it was unlikely that the road would ever be built, and Edelman questioned its usefulness. The road’s proposed course would be across the mouth of Cheeseboro Canyon and into the eastern end of Agoura Hills.

But Agoura Hills has abandoned its right of way to prevent extension of the boulevard through the city, and National Park Service officials have said they would not allow the road to cross park property.

“Even if you built it, it wouldn’t go anywhere,” Edelman said.

Malibu Terrace is one of four developments proposed for the 2,920-acre Palo Comado Canyon SEA, but the only one completely within its borders. The SEAs were selected for their value as habitat and migration corridors for wildlife, or as strongholds for threatened plants and animals. But portions of many SEAs have been ruined by development, and opponents of Malibu Terrace feared the project would have the same effect on Palo Comado.

Earlier this year, Edelman persuaded county officials to tighten restrictions on development inside SEAs. Thursday’s action was interpreted by environmentalists as the execution of that policy.

“I think it’s a big step,” said Nancy Hafner of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. “Here we had a project that had been approved, and now it’s being sent back down to be reconfigured. I think that’s very positive.”