Revisiting Calabasas Case

In “Judge Overturns Calabasas OK of Luxury Housing Plans,” (Times Valley Edition, Jan. 5) I was quoted as commenting that the court’s decision is “not at all shackling or restricting the authority of local governments.”

While this is a correct quote, none of the reasons I gave--explaining why the court’s decision does not question Calabasas’ claim to local control, much less “absolutely knocks out the entire state law on the rights of a brand-new city,” as one council member imagined--are reflected in the article.

Those reasons are simple.

In April and August, 1991, newly incorporated Calabasas adopted the county of Los Angeles’ zoning ordinance as its own.

This ordinance contains regulations which specifically require that development of proposals located in rural hillside areas, such as the Micor project, comply with the limits on density and the resource protection policies of the Malibu-Santa Monica Mountains Area Plan.

Thus, contrary to the intimation that the court is “imposing” a plan on the city that it has not adopted, the city imposed on itself the duty to enforce that plan.

In brief, all the court ordered the city to do is to abide by its own laws.

What’s wrong with that?

In a recent movie based on James Fenimore Cooper’s 18th-Century novel “The Last of the Mohicans,” one of Hawkeye’s traveling companions expressed disappointment at the British, lamenting that they apply their laws “as and when they please.”

The actions of the Calabasas City Council evoke the Mohicans’ complaint.

FRANK P. ANGEL

Los Angeles

Angel is an attorney for Save Open Space, Santa Monica Mountains .