New Policies OKd for Part of Santa Monicas

Seeking to preserve some of the area’s most important natural features, Los Angeles County planning officials voted Wednesday to update land-use policies for a 32-square-mile area of the Santa Monica Mountains.

The county Regional Planning Commission voted 3 to 0 to approve the North Area Plan and its final environmental impact report.

The action would affect unincorporated areas of the county stretching from Los Angeles to the Ventura County line surrounding the cities Hidden Hills, Westlake Village, Agoura Hills and Calabasas.

The measures place a strong emphasis on protection and preservation of scenic vistas, watersheds, natural vegetation and wildlife corridors in the Santa Monica Mountains region, according to regional planner Lee Stark.

“It helps to protect the interface between development and public open-space areas,” Stark said. “It helps to ensure that any development that’s permitted is sensitively located.”

The new plan would limit the number of additional housing units--to a maximum of 3,900--compared with the old plan, which permitted up to 5,400 homes.

But the proposal also includes a controversial provision that would increase the number of homes allowed on eight mountainous properties. Those revisions would add up to 228 houses.

The North Area Plan and environmental impact report will now be taken up by the county Board of Supervisors, which is expected to convene public hearings in late October, Stark said.

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Over the past decade, the Ventura Freeway Corridor--which includes the cities Hidden Hills, Westlake Village, Agoura Hills and Calabasas--has had an explosion of growth at four times the pace of the county as a whole.

A regionwide planning program--known as the Ventura Freeway Corridor Areawide Plan--was initiated in 1993 to address cross-jurisdictional issues such as increasing traffic, impacts to water and wildlife, and destruction of ridgelines and mountains, Stark said.

The four cities, the county, two other municipal agencies and the National Park Service banded together in 1993 to forge the mountains’ North Area Plan.