Back to square one for Agoura’s Triangle homes

By Stephanie Bertholdobertholdo@theacorn.com

Plans to develop Triangle Ranch, a proposed custom home site planned off Kanan and Cornell Roads next to Agoura Hills, were t e m p o r a r i l y foiled last week when the Los Angeles Department of Regional Planning sent the developer back to the drawing board with instructions to comply with the Santa Monica Mountains North Area Plan.

The plan was approved by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in 2000 to reign in rampant development in rural areas and protect a 32-square-mile stretch of pristine, unincorporated land between Hidden Hills and Westlake Village.

The plan, which requires new development to conform to the topography rather than change it, puts the 320-acre Triangle Ranch in a sensitive ecological zone, one of about 30 in the state of California. The property, which is located on Cornell Road behind the county fire station, is home to

he endangered plant Lyons pentachaeta, or pygmy daisy, and s a riparian habitat for a variety of wildlife and native plants.

Of the 320 acres, 266 acres would be preserved as open space.

The developer, Sage Community Group, said the Triangle Ranch homes will be built in two groups. The development east of Cornell Road would feature 27 homes in a gated community. The proposal calls for no sidewalks, curbs or gutters, and street lighting would be kept to a minimum.

The development west of Cornell Road off Kanan Road would include 54 homes. Initially, these homes were to conform to standard subdivision requirements, including sidewalks and curbs, but the developers now say this area will remain semi-rural as well.

The homes are expected to be a minimum of 4,000 square feet, with lot sizes ranging from a quarter acre to one full acre. Prices will range from about $800,000 to more than $2 million, said Penny Boehm, Triangle ranch spokesperson.

The more exclusive portion of the development is proposed as a gated community, which has been frowned upon in the past by Agoura Hills officials.

Several environmental groups oppose the ranch, including the Cornell Preservation Organization, the Las Virgenes Homeowners Federation, Heal the Bay and many others.

“This property is such a significant area, particularly with it being (located) under Ladyface Mountain, the gateway to the Santa Monica Mountains,” said Colleen Holmes, president of the Cornell Preservation Organization.

Boehm invited the planning commissioners to visit the site and appreciate its “complexity.”

“The whole Sage Community team doesn’t believe that we’ve gotten a fair shake from the county planning department,” Boehm said. “Somehow they have appeared biased and prejudiced against this development. We waited for several years while they worked out (the North Area Plan) and these 81 homes are consistent with what the NAP allows.”

Environmentalists painted a bleak picture of the proposed development.

According to the Cornell group, 500,000 cubic yards of earth would be moved and three-story high retaining walls would be erected below Ladyface Mountain.

“This project will bury untold linear stream miles, significantly degrade water quality which will likely increase liability and costs to (the) county and Agoura Hills, and will degrade the little remaining habitat along Medea Creek as it passes through our National Park,” Mark Abramson of Heal the Bay said in a letter.

Holmes said that the Cornell group devised an alternate plan that they believe is compatible with the North Area Plan.

The plan calls for nine homes on larger lots in an already “degraded area” of Ladyface Mountain.

“It protects all of the significant areas,” Holmes said. “We know it’s not what the developer wants, but it’s what the land is dictating as its use.”

Sage will meet with county planners again later this month.