Calabasas Split Over Civic Center

It seemed straightforward enough. Calabasas decided to build a multimillion-dollar civic center next to Calabasas Commons, its upscale shopping and entertainment complex. The city has the land--more than three acres--and the architect.

Now all it has to do is stop arguing about what the center should look like.

More than five years after the civic center was proposed, the City Council is still divided. It hasn’t agreed to accept the architectural model favored by its own Civic Center Advisory Committee and Planning Commission and has called for more public scrutiny.

The council also has voted to bring in San Francisco urban planner Michael Freedman to help get the center off the drawing board. Functioning as a kind of planning therapist for both council and community, Freedman will run a series of public meetings at which residents will have a chance to critique the architectural plan and clarify their vision for the ambitious new center.

Steve Craig, the city’s interim community development director, said there is nothing unusual about either the heated debate among council members or the hiring of an outsider to create consensus.

“A lot of what appears to be stress and strain is very common,” Craig said. “My honest feeling is: There’s no big plot here. It’s just a clumsy process.”

Although council members are careful not to name names, the pro-Freedman side seems to feel that the architects--the Pasadena firm of Gonzalez/Goodale--have veered from the original plan. It calls for a new city hall, library and performing arts center that would serve as the heart of the city. The council agreed that the center should be compatible with the Commons in its look and allow for the easy flow of foot traffic between the two complexes.

“What was not adequate was public participation,” former mayor and current Councilwoman Lesley Devine said of the planning process. “Bringing in an independent expert is the prudent and sensible thing to do.”

Planning public projects is often contentious, and Freedman has helped Arcadia, Pasadena and Santa Clarita hammer out the details, Calabasas City Manager Donald Duckworth said.

“It’s what I call a harmonizing process,” Craig said of the job Freedman has been hired to do for a fee of about $40,000. “His role will be to develop consensus among people who have strong opinions about which design solution should be adopted.”

Freedman, who had a similar role in refining the design of the Commons, is expected to conduct three to five public workshops over the next month or two, Craig said.

Craig hopes the meetings will help create community support for the $25-million project.

“It’s important for the community to be aware of what the council’s committing to,” he said. “If they don’t understand, there’s some chance of backlash [from the community].”

Some council members and others are unhappy with aspects of the plan the advisory committee favors. Some also are troubled by the fact that the Pasadena architects have designed only one other civic center, in Culver City.

“We could have had world-renowned architects at the same price,” said City Councilman Michael Harrison. “Instead we got architects that have designed only one civic center . . . and that has many, many problems.”

Calabasas has boomed in the 10 years since its incorporation, transformed from an almost rural community to one of the wealthiest in the Los Angeles area. Its 20,000 residents have a median household income of $83,000.

Devine recalled that when she moved to Calabasas 25 years ago, it had few amenities. You ate at either the Sagebrush Cantina or McDonald’s, she said, “and you couldn’t fill a prescription in Calabasas.”

Sitting on the patio of one of half a dozen restaurants in the Commons, Devine pointed to the shopping center, with its wide sidewalks and tree-shaded parking.

“We never had a town. This project became the center of the city,” she said.

The former mayor hopes the civic center also will reflect the new Calabasas.

“We are a suburban area that had no heart,” she said. “This [the civic center] has been created to be the heart of a suburban city, not an urban city.”

Harrison, an attorney and the newest council member, is adamant about changing the planning process.

“There’s no chance that a civic center will be built if we proceed as we’ve been proceeding,” he said. “We have to get community input. We have to get the community on board.”

Harrison objects to much of what he terms “the mediocre plan” under consideration. Some of his peeves are semantic. He shudders at the architects’ referring to the Civic and Cultural Complex.

“It sounds like they’re unrelated or mutually exclusive,” Harrison said, pointing out that the word “civic” is related to “civilization” and both derive from the Latin word for city. “ ‘Civic Center’ is enough.”

Harrison has more substantive complaints as well. Council-approved guidelines for the project call for a gathering place in the spirit of the Spanish Steps, a famous meeting and people-watching spot in Rome. Harrison is unimpressed with the architect’s proposal for stairs leading from the Commons to the civic complex, which would be on higher ground.

“These are going to be like the Siberian steppes,” Harrison said. “It’s not going to be a gathering space. It’s just going to be a place to get from the sidewalk below up to the civic center.”

He is also concerned about parking.

“Everyone will arrive by car, and anyone who says mothers will walk over from the Ralphs to check out a book at the library has a kink in his Slinky,” he said.

Harrison thinks the proposed underground parking will be gloomy and expensive. He favors sharing above-ground parking with neighboring Kilroy Realty.

The proposed city hall has a glass-enclosed top floor, to which Harrison also objects. The design ignores the council’s requirement that the complex be energy efficient, he said.

Mayor Janice Lee was the only council member to vote against hiring Freedman. “I just felt it was premature to hire another consultant until the architect we hired had an opportunity to hear the council’s comments on the present design,” she said.

She made it clear that she thinks consensus should be reached before buildings start going up.