County to Seek Cities’ Input on Planning : Development: The campaign to reformulate the Las Virgenes area’s General Plan includes a number of agencies as equal partners--a departure from past procedures.

To many in the Las Virgenes area, the Malibu Terrace housing project represents everything wrong with Los Angeles County’s planning process.

Proposed on the site of an ecological preserve, vigorously opposed by area residents and three times larger than what the county’s General Plan allows, the 341-home project nonetheless was approved without discussion last year by the Regional Planning Commission.

Las Virgenes residents--as well as officials from Calabasas, Agoura Hills and Westlake Village--were angered but not surprised by the hasty 3-2 decision, which followed more than three hours of detailed testimony against the project.

For years, locals have complained that county planning officials routinely ignore the area’s General Plan, adopted in 1981, and sign off on big projects without considering the impact on surrounding communities or the adjacent National Recreation Area. In fact, three of the area’s four cities were born out of distrust in county planning.

“We had come to regard county planning as an oxymoron,” Agoura Hills City Manager David Carmany said.

But that attitude is slowly changing and, for the first time in a decade, local officials are putting aside their prejudices and cooperating with county planners to determine how the area should develop into the next century.

County Supervisor Ed Edelman, who began representing the area after last year’s court-ordered redistricting, is spearheading a campaign to reformulate the area’s General Plan and to include the local cities and other agencies as equal partners in the process.

It is a first for the county, which in the past has accepted input from cities that abut unincorporated land only after the initial plans have been drawn up.

Although a single meeting has yet to take place, those to be involved are already thinking about what they want the new plan to include. Many agreed that a new plan will be more environmentally sensitive to the unique terrain of the mountainous area and to the need of maintaining open space and wildlife corridors. Most want to see less development in general. And some want to make sure that county design standards are tightened to blend in with the more restrictive codes of the surrounding cities. County and city officials hope that the cooperative effort will be successful so it can be exported to other areas of the county to avoid the sort of long-term distrust--whether justified or not--that festered in Las Virgenes.

“In the past, the county has been portrayed as a villain,” said Edelman, whose office will contribute half of the $120,000 needed for the two-year study. The other $60,000 will be provided by the four cities in the region--Calabasas, Westlake Village, Agoura Hills and Hidden Hills--as well as the water and school districts and the National Park Service.

“I’m trying to rectify some of the lack of confidence in the planning process and the lack of confidence in the county,” Edelman said. “Hopefully, this will restore confidence.”

So far, it has, however slowly. City officials, many of whom recall 10 years of battling with county planners over projects on their borders, initially were reluctant to accept Edelman’s overtures as sincere when the idea was floated last fall. Agoura Hills council members were hesitant. The Westlake Village City Council voted against participating in the study, but reconsidered after Edelman made a personal appeal.

The plan is intended to make as smooth a transition as possible between the cities and the pockets of unincorporated county land and will cover, among myriad topics, transportation improvements and parkland dedications on a regional, rather than fragmented, basis.

Planning experts hailed the proposal as an example of regional cooperation that has not, as often happens, been subverted by interagency disputes.

“It’s pretty amazing,” said William Fulton, an urban planner who publishes the California Planning & Development Report. “It’s the sort of thing that ought to happen more often and doesn’t.”

Supporters of Edelman’s proposal say a new plan--especially one created with input from local agencies--will be more closely followed by planning officials and will give school and water districts a more relevant blueprint for growth in the area.

“The complexion of the area is dramatically different from the situation that existed when the existing plan was devised,” said Joel Bellman, Edelman’s press deputy. “It is not that relevant of a planning document anymore,” he said, thus making it easier for developers to persuade planning commissioners to disregard it.

When the present plan was being formulated in the late 1970s, Westlake Village, Agoura Hills and Calabasas did not exist as incorporated cities. The National Recreation Area was in its infancy. The population of the area was about 27,300. Now, nearly 45,000 people live in the area, a 63% increase, according to U. S. Census figures. That growth rate is nearly four times the countywide average.

For their part, county planning officials and developers agreed that the area needs a new plan, but said the county’s reputation among area residents as unconcerned and pro-growth is undeserved.

“Our plan is less fluid than most,” said John Schwarze, head of the current planning section of the county’s Regional Planning Department. “Most people don’t understand what we go through to balance the interests of residents and developers.”

“The General Plan should be a fluid document that should be changed as the situation arises,” said Steve Grossbard, who represents Las Virgenes Properties of Sunnyvale, the group that wants to build Malibu Terrace. “It’s not a document that should be used as a final answer. The purpose of a general plan is to be a guideline. Period. That’s where people get lost.”

But for Albert Marley, the need is for a new general plan, one that would be strictly followed. As superintendent of the Las Virgenes Unified School District, which educates about 10,000 students between the Los Angeles city limits and the Ventura County line, Marley said a new plan is crucial for deciding where to build new schools and how many new teachers to hire. Without one, Marley said, the district would be forced to rely on the outdated projections of the 1981 plan.

“Whatever we come up with we need to adhere to it,” Marley said.

Marley’s concern was repeated by other public officials. Many fear that they may end up with a document just as irrelevant as the present plan if county officials choose to ignore it. Regardless of Edelman’s good intentions, they said, it only requires a majority of three planning commissioners or supervisors on their respective panels to make changes to even the most comprehensive plan.

“Planning in this area has been a joke,” Calabasas Councilwoman Lesley Devine said. “Now we have a supervisor who is using his own district funds to facilitate a coordinated plan. I admire his sensitivity and sincerity. But the Regional Planning Commission showed us how sensitive they are by passing Malibu Terrace.”

Edelman acknowledged that there will always be attempts to change a general plan but that such changes will become more difficult to accomplish because of the involvement of different agencies. He said an updated plan will have more credibility with planning commissioners and may discourage developers from making outlandish requests for upzoning.

“We want a product that is going to be more than just lip service,” he said.