Calabasas : Controversial Project Drags Into New Year

When the City Council voted in December 1994 to approve a controversial office and retail center, council members may have hoped their votes would end the bickering.

It didn’t.

Opponents of the project continued to work to block it, and by July, had gathered enough signatures to force a referendum.

Back in 1989, before Calabasas became a city, Ahmanson Commercial Development obtained entitlements from the county for its 1.5-million-square-foot Calabasas Park Centre, at Parkway Calabasas and Calabasas Road.

Later, prompted by a weak office market, the developer applied to the city, which incorporated in 1991, for conditional-use permits to increase the retail component from 50,000 to 200,000 square feet.

The council approved the change on the condition that John Kilroy, an Ahmanson associate, work with a community task force to draw up a Master Plan.

After the referendum group’s successful signature drive, the council came under pressure to place the matter on the March ballot. But the council resisted, saying it wanted to resolve a legal question: whether the referendum would apply to the conditional-use permits the city had approved. The developer argued that even if the referendum were successful, it would not invalidate those permits.

This fall, the city filed a motion in Los Angeles Superior Court asking a judge to give an opinion on the matter.

The court has yet to make a determination.

A Master Plan task force, which began meeting in June, was expected to continue its work into 1996, according to Allan Cooper, a spokesman for the task force.

A deadline is looming for the developer, who must cut 100,000 square feet off the project if the Master Plan is not completed within one year.