Triangle Ranch's checkered past keeps development from happening

In 1958, a group of friends and family members pooled their money to purchase several hundred acres of land in an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County, adjacent to what was then the rural town of Agoura. They planned to develop the property and make some money, but little did they know that half a century later their efforts would still go unrewarded.

Many of the original investors of the property that is now known as Triangle Ranch have died, but the Beautiful City Holding Co., which oversees Triangle Ranch, lives on, as do a handful of the original investors and many of their heirs.

Former local resident Vance Moran, 83, continues to serve as president of Beautiful City Holding Co. from his hometown of Covington, La., where he retired last year. Moran is best known as the landlord and co-founder, with the late Art Whizin, of Whizin's Mall in Agoura Hills. Art's son, Bruce, now oversees the mall's operation.

Whizin, Moran and the children and grandchildren of the original 38 investors have now grown in numbers to 100 investors. The developer of Triangle Ranch, Sage Community Group, is working on an environmental impact report that calls for a 71home project in four enclaves on 54 of the project's 320-acre total.

But because the development has been so long in the making, Whizin wonders if it might be cursed.

"It's been starts and stops for 48 years," Whizin said. "People who looked at this for their retirement have long since died."

Whizin said an earthquake in the late 1940s or early '50s in Santa Ynez Valley lowered the water table in Agoura, which eventually took its toll on farming. In 1954, when Whizin and Moran purchased the restaurant that is now Wood Ranch, Agoura residents relied upon well water.

"We were very instrumental in bringing water (to the area)," Whizin said.

The Whizin and Moran families donated the rights of way for water and sewer lines to the Metropolitan Water District and the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District during its formation in the mid-1950s, and also donated land and rights of way to Los Angeles County for the Kanan Interchange.

Whizin finds the battle over the current development ironic. He says if his family and the Morans hadn't donated water and land rights to the county, the residents who currently live south of the 101 freeway would not be able to live there today.

"We gave it to them because it was good for the community," Whizin said. "All for the people who are living at the present time south of Agoura Road, short of Malibou Lake.

"These are the same people who do not want us to get a decent value out of a piece of property that we've held for 48 years," Whizin added.

The bad luck continued in the early 1960s. Whizin said that one section of the property, coined "Beautiful City," was slated for a senior housing project. The plan was approved by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, but then-President Richard Nixon put a freeze on HUD funding.

The Santa Monica Mountains North Area Plan cast a shadow over the development as well. The plan was approved by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in 2000 to control development in rural areas and protect a 32-square-mile stretch of pristine, unincorporated land between Hidden Hills and Westlake Village.

Unfortunately for the Triangle Ranch investors, the development site lies in the middle of a North Area Plan zone that has been deemed ecologically sensitive

"Do we have property rights or don't we have property rights?" Whizin asks. "Where do they exist? So much of this is, 'I've got mine, now stay out of my yard.'"