110 Calabasas Area Houses Get OK : Development: Project along Las Virgenes Road will include 4.5-acre commercial project and 400 acres of open space.

Capping eight years of debate, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a controversial housing project near Calabasas at a fraction of its original size and gave up on extending an unpopular four-lane highway through the property.

The board granted the developer of the Malibu Terrace project permission to build a 4.5-acre commercial project and 110 houses in the sensitive ecological area along Las Virgenes Road north of the Ventura Freeway--less than one-tenth of the 1,816 houses originally proposed in 1986. The supervisors also designated 400 acres of the 500-acre property as open space.

The board dropped plans to extend Thousand Oaks Boulevard about a mile east through the property over the objections of the county’s road department, which recommended building the road as the first step toward creating a vital alternative to the Ventura Freeway.

Supervisor Ed Edelman, who represents the area, successfully argued that the remaining four miles of the extension would never be completed because of opposition from nearby residents, the city of Calabasas and the National Park Service, which owns the contiguous Cheeseboro Canyon area.

“Our road people, God love them, see roads and just can’t live without them,” Edelman said. “But the problem is this road won’t go anywhere.”

In lieu of the road, the supervisors ordered Las Virgenes Properties to pay the county $600,000 for regional transportation improvements, such as bridge widening and traffic signal installation. John Vidovich, a partner in the development firm, objected to the fee, saying the company had already agreed to pay almost $500,000 in other traffic fees.

Even so, Vidovich said he was relieved the project had finally been approved.

“I’m going to celebrate by being nice to my wife,” Vidovich said. “We’ve only been married 10 years and I’ve been working on this project the whole time.”

The resolution of the long-debated issue also pleased Calabasas officials, who argued that extending Thousand Oaks Boulevard would generate traffic and induce growth in their 3-year-old city. Calabasas incorporated in 1991, largely out of displeasure with the county’s planning policies.

But Mary Weisbrock, director of the environmental group Save Open Space, said the project will destroy the Palo Comado Significant Ecological Area--one of 61 areas designated for protection by the county in 1980.

Weisbrock also said the board should have required the developer to donate the open space to a public agency, as Edelman initially proposed. Instead, the board simply designated it as open space, effectively allowing the developer to try to sell or lease it to a parks agency or other public entity.

However, the board said if the developer decides to donate land, it must be given to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, the National Parks Service or the county.