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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

DEVELOPMENT—Agoura Hills May Bend Principles for Big-Box Stores

Big-box retailers weren’t exactly what the city fathers envisioned when they incorporated Agoura Hills. In fact, they incorporated largely to put the brakes on growth. But faced with a need to raise millions for road improvements, Agoura Hills officials and residents alike are now weighing a development plan that would include at least one, if not two, big-box stores. The development proposed by Selleck Development Group Inc. would plunk a 24-acre retail center down on the south side of Agoura Road. It is the kind of project most residents would have rejected out of hand a few years ago. But these days, the community is torn between its desire to retain its rural, scenic landscapes and the need to fix roads like the Kanan Road interchange, which is so overburdened it regularly backs up onto the Ventura (101) Freeway. “I think there’s a split in the community over how much development should go on,” said Dave Adams, Agoura Hills city manager. “But both the council and the community are more open to development, realizing we have to have a new funding source to get these (road improvements) done.” The dilemma came home to roost with the Selleck proposal, which was set into motion late last month at a meeting with city officials. Selleck who also developed Van Nuys Center at The Plant, a retail complex in Panorama City hopes to build a 300,000-square-foot shopping center on a parcel that now houses a collection of small businesses and an animal shelter. Daniel F. Selleck, president of the development company, said his firm is in escrow to acquire five of the six separately owned parcels needed to build the complex. Late last month he received tentative approval from the Agoura Hills City Council on a plan to widen Agoura Road, a precondition to getting any development approved for the site. Project moving ahead Selleck already has acquired a site to relocate the Los Angeles County animal shelter that now operates on the property. An environmental impact report on his proposed development is due to be completed within the next few months. “The EIR is going to study an option of two large-scale retailers along with some other freestanding restaurants and a single large retailer and more multi-tenant retail and, I believe, the city is going to pick a third alternative (to study) as well,” Selleck said. Building the retail center would require rezoning the parcel, and would bring the kinds of mass-market retailers Agoura Hills has long shunned. The accompanying road improvements also would cut into the city’s cherished hillsides. On the upside, the project could boost the city’s annual tax revenues by 30 percent, and Agoura Hills may not be able to afford to forego that windfall because the state has thrown much of the responsibility for funding roadway improvement into the city’s hands. “We have a $10 million commitment (from Caltrans to widen the Kanan Road freeway exit), but we have to come up with a local match,” said Jeff Reinhardt, an Agoura Hills city councilman. Since Agoura Hills was founded in 1984 with the express purpose of allowing residents greater control over development, the city has pursued a course of slow growth that has preserved 40 percent of its land as open space. But in recent years the city has found itself smack in the middle of a growth spurt along the so-called Tech Corridor that runs from Calabasas into Ventura County. Several roads must now be widened, including the Kanan interchange, which Councilman Reinhardt called “dysfunctional” because the two-lane exit is so overburdened. The city’s annual budget of $6 million is not enough to get the repairs done, and officials have resisted imposing business taxes to raise the money, leaving retail development as the only option. Benefits of big-box deal The Selleck project, the first large-scale retail complex Agoura Hills has seen in 10 years, could bring 200 to 300 permanent jobs to the city and about $700,000 to $800,000 in added annual tax revenues. “Citywide, annual sales tax revenues are about $2.4 million,” said Dave Adams, Agoura Hills city manager. “So (tax revenue from the Selleck project) is a big factor. We’ve got some huge road problems we inherited from the county that we have to come up with funding for.” Small, local businesses don’t generate the levels of tax revenues a big-box retailer could, and small businesses have not fared well at the southern end of the city. “The majority of residential is north of the freeway,” said David Anderson, Agoura Hills planning and community development director. “Anything that happens on the south side of the freeway would largely be of a more regional nature, simply because the freeway acts as a barrier (to Agoura Hills residents shopping south of the freeway).” But the design and type of retail center being proposed by Selleck remain sticking points with the community. Big-box development on the site would be visible from the freeway, changing the landscape and transforming the community’s fiercely guarded image to passersby. Neighbors also fear that big-box retailers would draw traffic from neighboring communities, adding to congestion, and might jeopardize the small-business owners currently operating in the community, many of whom are also residents. “We’re concerned that some of the businesses would suffer from the competition (from big-box stores),” said Jess Thomas, president of Old Agoura Homeowners Association. “If they put in a Target, they can put out a lot of these small businesses that sell specialty goods. And that could lead to business blight.” Still, residents met Selleck’s proposal to widen Agoura Road with some satisfaction, because the design would avoid the kind of cookie-cutter roadways that are often found in newer suburban communities. “It’s better because it actually protects more of the older oak trees and lets the road meander instead of being straight, which we think adds to the character of the community,” said Thomas. In the end, the homeowners say, they could accept a big-box center too, if it were designed in a way that would preserve the rural ambiance they’ve worked so hard to instill.

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