Agoura Hills objects to Triangle Ranch homes

Opposition continues to mount against Triangle Ranch, a custom home development planned for the area off Kanan and Cornell roads next to Agoura Hills.

Local environmental groups —and now the city of Agoura Hills—have publicly renounced the project. City officials unanimously voted to oppose the project that is being planned in an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County.

“The proposal as currently given to us is not friendly to Agoura Hills,” said Dan Kuperberg, Agoura Hills City Councilmember.

The development calls for 71 single family homes in four enclaves on 320 acres near the city’s boundary. Forty-seven homes are being proposed in two areas on the west side of Kanan Road and an additional 10 properties between Kanan and Cornell Roads have been planned. The remaining 14 homes would be built on

he east side of Cornell.

Although the city took a stand against the project, final approval

s in the hands of the Los Angeles Department of Regional Planning. Since the development is located n what is called the “gateway” to Agoura Hills, city officials sent letters to the planning board addressing objections they have to the project’s environmental impact report. The county hasn’t responded to the city’s concerns, said Senior Planner Allison Cook.

“We’re flying in a little blind,” Councilmember Bill Koehler said regarding the city’s efforts to proceed despite the county’s silence.

Craig Steele, city attorney, explained that the county must respond to questions 10 days prior to taking action on a project. The deadline for response was pushed back to April 5.

Opponents of the project say the property is located in a sensitive ecological zone and therefore must comply with the Santa Monica Mountains North Area Plan, which 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.

Located on Cornell Road behind the county fire station in Medea Valley, the development is home to the endangered plant Lyons pentachaeta, or pygmy daisy, and is a riparian habitat for a variety of wildlife and native plants.

“We happen to have the ignominious pleasure of having the largest (concentration) of a plant called Lyons pentachaeta in the world,” said Bruce Whizin, one of the 50 Triangle Ranch investors. “The plant, as I understand it, is three-quarters of an inch high and is green about three to four months out of the year, and has a little daisy-like flower that is about a quarter inch in diameter. The rest of the year it is dirt and you cannot even see it.”

But environmentalists say there is more to protect in the Santa Monica Mountains than the pygmy daisy. The range has been identified as one of only five Mediterranean ecosystems in the world. Of all the world’s biomes the Mediterranean is the rarest, experts say.

“We’re not against development,” Colleen Holmes, president of the Cornell Preservation Organization, said. “But we are saying that (the preservation of) Ladyface has to be taken into consideration.”

Holmes said her organization preferred development on land that was already deemed “degraded.”

“I know something like this takes time and I have the patience to wait for this,” said Triangle Ranch investor and former local resident Vance Moran from his Louisiana home. Moran said that while he sympathizes with environmentalists, he also believes in progress.

“I think people deserve it if they can afford to live in a certain area,” Moran said.

“If somebody owns property and they don’t want to develop it, that’s their right, too,” he added.