Calabasas Clarifies Its Planning Rules Amid Micor Project

Still stinging from a judge’s reversal of its first major land-use decision, the Calabasas City Council has taken action to avoid future legal trouble by clarifying its planning rules to give council members more discretionary power.

At the same time, the council cleared the way to revive the controversial housing project that was the subject of the judge’s ruling. Environmentalists who brought on the action by filing a lawsuit complained that Wednesday’s council decision left the city without responsible planning standards.

The changes were made to satisfy Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert H. O’Brien who in December overturned the City Council’s unanimous approval of plans to build 250 luxury homes on 938 acres east of Las Virgenes Road, saying the city’s land-use regulations were too vague.

Until the city--which incorporated in 1991 to gain more control over land-use decisions--adopts its own general plan, restrictions of the Los Angeles County plan will remain in effect, the judge ruled.

Micor Ventures’ proposal would have violated the county plan.

But under Wednesday’s council action, the company will be allowed to resubmit its proposal to build in an undeveloped canyon that environmentalists consider an important wildlife corridor.

Micor President Michael Rosenfeld could not be reached for comment, but city officials said he plans to resubmit his proposal to the Calabasas Planning Commission sometime this year.

Wednesday’s changes essentially codify what residents and city officials had thought was already the case: City Council decisions on how land should be developed supersede any prior restrictions of the county’s plan.

“What we are doing is clarifying that which we thought was already very clear,” City Atty. Charles Vose said. “It’s more for projects in the future. We want people to know which rules they will be governed by.”

The confusion stems from the harried first weeks after the city incorporated.

When the novice council members adopted some county land-use ordinances as their own, they also adopted many of the county’s restrictions. Council members thought their actions would supersede county ordinances.

But since they did not include specific language to that effect, O’Brien, ruling in a lawsuit filed by the environmental group Save Open Space, decided that the county restrictions still applied.

In Wednesday night’s action, the council specifically repudiated the county restrictions.

Council members said they plan to appeal O’Brien’s ruling.

Wednesday’s changes are intended to act as an interim measure to protect the city against lawsuits until a general plan is adopted next year.

“I think this is to protect the city from whatever we do until the general plan is in place and that is not going to be in place for another year, at least,” Mayor Pro Tem Marvin Lopata said.

Save Open Space attorney Frank P. Angel said the council’s action leaves the city without responsible planning standards until a general plan is adopted.

“The ordinance itself seems to indicate they do not want to be encumbered by any standard,” Angel said.