Fight for the Hills

Looking out above Las Virgenes Road in Calabasas, Deirdre Waitt admired the expansive views to the north and south of golden foothills and tree-dotted valleys. “Isn’t this gorgeous?” Waitt asked, atop a muddy construction site that will become the Paxton Calabasas townhome project once her company, Blue Marble Development of Las Vegas, builds 78 townhomes on the 21-acre site. “With flat pieces of land, you can get started (building) right away, but hillsides have the beautiful views,” she explained. The hillsides’ pastoral beauty along that stretch of Las Virgenes Road on the south side of the 101 freeway belies the construction challenges they present and the uphill battles developers must wage with the city and residents to win approval to build on them. But with most of the easier tracts of land already developed, only the hillsides are left. As housing prices continue to rise amid a declared housing shortage, developers are making the climb. Waitt’s company will be one of the lucky ones to see its vision materialize. Two other developers with plans farther north along the scenic roadway have not been as lucky yet. The city’s project approval process is costly and time-consuming, they say, but cite the opposition from residents as the hardest obstacle. “If it’s difficult, it’s because the residents of Calabasas want it difficult,” said Tony Coroalles, city manager for Calabasas. “The City Council reflects the political opinions of their constituents.” Contentious beauty Homeowners see Calabasas’ valleys and rural landscape as what distinguishes the city from the congested San Fernando Valley. Encroaching suburbia has been their battle cry. Development started with gas stations, retail shops and restaurants around the 101 freeway interchange and it spread to Agoura and Las Virgenes roads in what at the time was an unincorporated area of L.A. County. By the time Calabasas became a city in the early 1990s, several property owners along the portion south of the highway had large land tracts approved for projects by L.A. County. “Residents felt it was being developed too fast with not enough constraints,” Coroalles explained. “That was the engine that led residents to say, ‘We don’t want to be unincorporated; we want to be in charge of our own destiny.’” The Paxton townhomes, and the hotel proposed for a 4-acre plot next to the gas stations, are on parcels the city inherited as entitled by the county. The city couldn’t rezone the tracts, Coroalles said, which would essentially have changed what could be built there, without facing lawsuits. But it designated the section of Las Virgenes Road mostly on the 101’s south side a “scenic corridor,” and attached overlay zoning with development standards, such as height restrictions, to protect the hillsides and the views of them from the freeway. Malibu developer Richard Weintraub’s planned hotel is one of two proposals that illustrate what can be a frustrating give-and-take for builders in Calabasas and many Southern California cities. A year ago, in June, Weintraub won city approval to build a three-story hotel on a previously entitled tract next to Rondell Road. It was his second design. His initial hotel concept should have been easily approved – it was an allowed use of the parcel, and city officials wanted a hotel there for the estimated $626,000 hotel bed tax revenue it would generate. But Weintraub proposed a four-story Marriott International Springhill Suites hotel in front of a sloping hillside. His design exceeded the city’s three-story height limit. The fourth story triggered an outcry from residents who claimed the height would obstruct views of the hills, and the hotel would increase traffic. Weintraub went through at least 10 pre-official meetings with the city and residents, he said. The design was approved by the Planning Commission. But even after redesigning the project with a smaller fourth story, the council rejected Weintraub’s hotel after an informal vote. After the council’s decision, a year ago in May, Weintraub told the Business Journal in an interview that trying to work with the opposing residents was “absolutely horrible.” “I don’t think those people want anything built,” Weintraub said. With so much already invested in the project, Weintraub cut off the fourth story and received city approval soon after. But it took him another 10 months to find a new hotel partner. The city had to chip in $4 million to turn the parking lot into a park-and-ride for residents and hotel guests, or Weintraub was going to build a self-storage facility instead – eliminating potential bed tax revenue for the city. The hotel will be a Cambria, an “upscale yet reasonably-priced hotel” brand of Choice Hotels International Inc. that opened in 2007 with an average daily room rate of $132 in 2016. Coroalles estimated the bed tax revenue for the city at $500,000. John and Joanne Suwara, co-founders of the residents’ group Calabasas Coalition, opposed Weintraub’s hotel. They are among the residents who have been successful, to an extent, in getting developers to change aspects of their projects that would, they feel, have impacted views of the hillsides. Joanne Suwara drove the City Council to require Weintraub to erect story poles on his hotel site representing its potential height for the four-story design so residents could see if they might impact the hills and views of them. The story pole law also required another developer, New Home Co. of Aliso Viejo, to do the same thing for its four-story hotel proposed just south of Weintraub’s on Las Virgenes Road. “At the City Hall meetings, 50 to 70 people were there to oppose the height of the projects, and on both of them we prevailed on having them reduced,” Joanne Suwara said. West Village New Home Co.’s concept for its hilly 77-acre parcel on Las Virgenes Road illustrates the dysfunctional elements in the approval process. The company clinched city approval in May of last year for a project then named Canyon Oaks after at least a four-year approval process. It hoped to erect a four-story hotel and 67 single-family homes and duplexes. But a hotel was not allowed on the site, and its height exceeded the legal limits. Both issues required changes to the General Plan and zoning. While the Calabasas City Council approved it, the needed General Plan changes opened the door for residents to petition for a ballot measure in the November election. Voters supported Measure F to disapprove the project. What New Home had proposed was one-third the size of what the General Plan allowed. In April, it submitted a revised design renamed West Village with 180 condominiums in 15, three-story buildings and roughly 6,000-square-foot of retail space. New Home added a public walking trail and a 15,600-square-foot community park. The new design leaves 83 percent of the parcel as open space, but it is denser than the original plan. “Measure F was so stupid because at the end of the day what Measure F flushed down the toilet was 67 single family homes and one hotel,” Coroalles said. “And what they’re likely to get is 15 three-story buildings. … The opposition’s feeling is, ‘If we stop it long enough, that nothing will ever be built.’” New Home declined to comment on the project for the story, saying it still needs to go through the entitlement approval process. Allowing residents to overturn City Council decisions defeats the purpose of electing council members to vote on such projects, said Jeff Johnston, president of real estate investment firm Johnston Group in Agoura Hills. That’s because no matter how many meetings developers hold, people may vote who never attended them, he added. And that makes proposing projects a gamble for developers. “You’re spending a lot of money trying to get these things approved,” Johnston said. “And to have them turned down at the last minute after you’ve spent all this money is difficult to say the least, and frustrating. It certainly makes you think twice about trying to do any development in those cities.” By complying with the General Plan, New Home has challenged those who would oppose it, the Suwaras said. The couple is against it because the site has an ancient landslide. Joanne Suwara said if the City Council approves the new plan, that could open the door for possible legal action. “Litigation is always out there,” she said.