101 Freeway landscaping project begins in Calabasas

By Michael Picarella Acorn Staff Writer

Since 1998, Calabasas has planned to improve its appearance along the 101 Freeway. Shooting for eye-catching esthetics, the city recently launched its Gateway Calabasas Landscaping Project by installing trees along the freeway greenbelts.

The Gateway Landscaping Project will cost about $750,000. But the city of Calabasas only spent about $200,000. The New Millennium project has contributed almost $500,000, Caltrans forked over about $50,000 and individual private parties also gave money.

The landscaping project has been the topic of public workshops and was reviewed by several municipal organizations, including the tree board and city council, according to City Manager Donald Duckworth.

"We want the plans to be whatever the community and everybody wants," Duckworth said. "My goal is to have the landscaping really announce the gateway to Calabasas, which is the premier residential community in the area. It announces that you’re here—at a special place."

Beginning in September, some fan palm trees were initially planted near the Calabasas on- and off-ramps to the 101 Freeway. But two residents criticized the palm trees at last week’s city council meeting.

"There were to be some palm trees that would be clustered, but not the way they were done—not rows of palm trees," said Calabasas tree board member Helene Regen in an interview after the meeting. "It looks like Palm Springs or the back of the MGM Hotel in Las Vegas. It’s not representative of Calabasas," she said.

Regen said she thought the project would include more pepper trees, oaks and other trees that are native to the area.

Those trees will be planted, Duckworth said. They just weren’t the first to be planted.

The fan palms, which are native to Southern California, were placed carefully.

"If you go out and look at those palm trees," Duckworth said, "they’re planted in front of telephone poles and they’re planted to reduce the towering impact of the auto dealership (Calabasas Motorcars) and they’re planted to obstruct the bridge abutments from down below."

And while some residents don’t like them, other residents did, Duckworth said.

"There’s a difference in flavor between what the community says they want on the Las Virgenes side of the Calabasas grade and what they say they want on the Los Angeles basin side of the Calabasas grade," Duckworth said. Some people think palms are appropriate on the suburban side of town and less people like palms on the rural side, he said.

"The landscape architect has said, ‘Hey, these palm trees are a Southern California icon and they accomplish some of the landscape objectives to the project,’" Duckworth said.

"And so we’re going to selectively put a few of them in. And then around that framing, we’ll do a lot of very lush landscaping with smaller trees, oak trees, pepper trees, and other kinds of trees and plant material in the foreground," he said.

"I think because the palm trees went in first," Duckworth said, "there was an initial reaction from some that said, ‘Oh my God, there’s too many palm trees.’"

But the palm tree opponents, he said, might like them once the see the final picture.

At the council meeting last week, Duckworth said a public meeting would be scheduled for residents to voice their opinions about the project after it’s completed. Nothing is irreversible, he said. If the feedback is overwhelmingly against them, the palms could be removed.

"Whatever the community wants is what we want," Duckworth said.

Regen said she and several other members of the tree board look forward to the finished project.