CALABASAS : Group Mounts Drive Against Park Centre

A group of community activists have launched a referendum drive to stop construction of a large-scale commercial and retail center approved last year by the Calabasas City Council.

The group, which is seeking to overturn the development agreement, needs 1,152 valid signatures by July 7 to get the matter on the ballot, according to the city clerk’s office.

“We wanted to exercise our constitutional right to put this to a vote of the people of Calabasas,” said Ted Rosenquist, a referendum group leader. “This is the most important land-use decision ever in the city.”

John Kilroy, a fee developer for Ahmanson Land Co., won approval from the county for the 1.5-million-square-foot Calabasas Park Centre, at Calabasas Road and Parkway Calabasas, before Calabasas became a city in 1991.

But city approval was needed when Kilroy proposed increasing the retail portion of the project by 200,000 square feet. The council approved the project in December, on the condition that Kilroy cut the project’s size and draw up a master plan for all but the 200,000-square-foot retail portion.

Mark Ossola, vice president and project director for the development, said Thursday that even a successful referendum would not overturn the developer’s conditional-use permits, which allow him to proceed with the retail component. The developer, he said, could also opt to use its original entitlements from the county, for a five-story, 12-unit complex that no one in the city wants.

Calabasas City Atty. Casey Vose has advised the city to wait to see if the petition drive is successful. In the meantime, he said, the city can study the legal issues.

“There is legal authority for proceeding with the referendum,” Vose said. “The question is what happens if it is successful. . . . A developer has all kinds of entitlements. The question is which ones are valid and which ones are not. It’s a unique area that has never been tested.”

City Councilman Marvin Lopata, who helped draw up the compromise proposal approved by the council, scoffed at the referendum group’s claims that opponents’ views were not adequately considered.

“There were probably 15 or 20 public hearings on the project,” he said.

What’s more, Lopata said, of the seven planning commissioners and five council members who voted to approve the project, six live in Calabasas Park, a residential neighborhood near the planned center.