Annex Hearing Reset for Mountain View

Needing time to prepare a response to comments submitted by an area developer to its environmental impact documents, the city of Calabasas has postponed a public hearing to consider a proposal to annex Mountain View Estates.

The hearing, originally set for Wednesday, has been rescheduled for July 24 to give the city time to answer comments from Ahmanson Land Co., which sued to block the annexation, city officials said Friday. It was unclear what comments were submitted.

The procedural document asserts that the annexation would have no negative impact on the environment since Mountain View is an existing development and would have no changes. The document was prepared, city officials have said, to support the argument that a full environmental study is not necessary to annex the 823.4-acre unincorporated territory.

Mountain View residents, who have waited and supported annexation for nearly three years, took the postponement in stride, having been through several in the last year.

“It just means Calabasas is doing their homework,” said William Bell, spokesman and former president of the Mountain View Estateowners Assn. “I don’t see it as a negative move. We’ve worked closely with the city of Calabasas on this, and so far as I know they are taking the steps necessary to see this through.”

The annexation proposal had been approved by the City Council and the Local Agency Formation Commission when a Superior Court ruling in August 1994 blocked it.

Annexation supporters began the process again in hopes that it will be successful the second time around.

Bell said residents of Mountain View, a gated community off Mureau Road, would like to be a part of Calabasas, a “young city with a fairly conservative view as far as development is concerned.”

Ahmanson reportedly is blocking annexation for fear it would hurt its plans to build an access road near Mountain View Estates for its own planned development nearby.