Calabasas : Special Levy Weighed for Street Project

The city of Calabasas is considering creation of a special assessment district to raise $10 million to revamp streets in the western part of the city to accommodate a growing volume of traffic.

The City Council will vote at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at City Hall on whether to hire a financial consultant to study the idea.

Under the plan, developers of new single-family homes would be assessed $4,650 per unit, developers of townhouses $3,720 per unit and developers of commercial buildings $4,742 per 1,000 square feet. Assessments for industrial buildings have yet to be determined, but city officials estimate that they would average $2,845 per 1,000 square feet.

The district boundaries would be the unincorporated community of Monte Nido to the south, the Ventura County line to the north, Las Virgenes Road to the east and the Agoura Hills city limits to the west.

Some $4 million of the assessment money would go to improving westbound and eastbound Ventura Freeway on- and off-ramps at Lost Hills Road, city officials said. And about $1.5 million, they said, would be used to widen the Agoura Road bridge over Las Virgenes Creek.

Another $2.5 million would go to widen and make other improvements to Las Virgenes Road, officials said, while $750,000 would be used to improve the westbound Ventura Freeway off-ramp at Las Virgenes Road.

However, some people are opposed to creation of special assessment districts, saying they violate the spirit of Proposition 13, which set a cap on property taxes.

“It’s getting to the point where in some places, the additional fees and assessments could be more than the tax on the property itself,” said Jere Robings, head of a Ventura County-based anti-tax group. He will speak at an anti-tax forum in Agoura Hills at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Radisson Hotel, 30100 Agoura Road.