Panel OKs Contentious Malibu Terrace Project : Development: The approval comes after a planned road extension is dropped--a proposal that had been opposed by the builder and opponents.

One of the most contentious development proposals in the Las Virgenes area was approved Wednesday by a Los Angeles County planning board after the panel suddenly axed the project’s most unpopular aspect--extension of a four-lane highway to the edge of a national park.

The abrupt decision by the Regional Planning Commission surprised and heartened not only opponents of the Malibu Terrace project, but the developer as well. Both sides, neither of which particularly wanted the road, said the decision eased tensions and could keep the issue out of the courtroom.

However, the Board of Supervisors still has the final say over whether Las Virgenes Properties will be able to build 110 homes and a 4.5-acre commercial project in a sensitive ecological area along Las Virgenes Road north of the Ventura Freeway.

In addition, the board will decide what conditions to impose on the project--including the possibility of reinstating the extension of Thousand Oaks Boulevard, which is considered vital by the county’s road department.

“Ultimately, it will go to the Board of Supervisors and it will be deja vu all over again,” commission Chairman Richard Wulliger said after Wednesday’s vote.

Extending the boulevard to the eastern border of Cheeseboro Canyon has long been a sticking point in the project’s long and tortured history. Recognizing that fact, commissioners elected to delete it.

Opponents argued that the road would destroy the natural landscape and feared that it could eventually be extended across Cheeseboro Canyon. The builder has complained that it would restrict his ability to design a development more sensitive to the land.

“Thousand Oaks Boulevard is the source of the opposition,” said John Vidovich, a partner in Sunnyvale-based Las Virgenes Properties.

Indeed, Jess Thomas, president of the Old Agoura Homeowners Assn., said his concerns were largely addressed by removal of the road from the plan. “I feel really good about it,” he said.

But Mary Weisbrock, a leader of the environmental group Save Open Space, said she will continue to press for changes to the project, which sits inside the Palo Comado Significant Ecological Area--one of 61 such areas designated for protection by the county in 1980.

“It destroys the heart of the SEA,” Weisbrock said, conceding that the absence of Thousand Oaks Boulevard would allow some room for negotiating. “We want them to redesign it out of the SEA.”

The plans approved Wednesday were dramatically different from those originally presented to commissioners in 1990. That proposal, which included 116 houses, 1,700 apartments and 60,000 square feet of commercial space, was rejected.

A year later, the developer brought back a plan to build 341 houses and apartments, which was approved initially by the commission, but then rejected. The Board of Supervisors reviewed the proposal in 1992 and ordered the developer to draw up a plan more sensitive to the surroundings.