City EIR to Include Park Site Alternatives

Hoping to address concerns about traffic and noise at a proposed sports park on Lindero Canyon Road, city officials are revising an environmental impact report to include alternative sites for the park.

“Some other reasonable alternatives have been discussed, and we think it’s only appropriate to include those in the revised EIR,” said Planning Director Robert Theobald.

The city will consider public comments on the original report and then recirculate the revised version “more out of courtesy than necessity,” Theobald said.

The planned sports park, which some residents fear would bring baseball diamonds and soccer fields into their backyards, has elicited a chorus of complaints since the City Council proposed the Lindero site a year and a half ago.

In April, residents formed a group to promote spending priorities other than a sports park, such as a hospital.

The main alternative under consideration is an 11-acre site behind the PriceCostco store on Lindero Canyon Road, Theobald said.

At a meeting of homeowners last month, Mayor Kris Carraway-Bowman said Westlake Village officials hope to form a partnership with the Las Virgenes Unified School District to build a school and various sports fields on the site.

Theobald said that the city is considering that option, as well as the possibility of having both a combination school and park site and some less intense use of the original parcel proposed for the sports park.

City officials plan to release the revised environmental impact report for public review by the end of September, Theobald said. The final document would then be presented to the City Council in October.