Good in theory

In theory, Agoura Village is a good idea, but as the city staff and outside agency environmental and traffic reports clearly bore out, it's just not right for the intersection of Kanan/Agoura roads. It is fraught with more problems than the city could ever expect to rectify and that's too bad.

It would require variances on parking and building heights, and as Mike Kamino of the city admitted, noncompliant business within the Agoura Village Specific Plan would be forced to comply. That's a sneaky way of saying they must abandon their businesses and build something that adds to the plan, sell out to someone who will, or be forced out by the city so that the city may decide who is best suited to fit its needs.

The ultimate success of the plan also seems to hinge on a roundabout which would replace the existing traffic signals. A roundabout is supposed to make traffic flow better with less accidents, but the report(er) never mentioned how many cars per hour it could handle and certainly didn't adequately address how pedestrian traffic, beach traffic, numerous traffic jams because of fires and freeway accidents, diagonal parking on Agoura Road, bicycles and the estimated 5,000 extra cars per day who would be using the Village would impede the flow. They glossed over it, but it didn't appear to satisfy anyone in the audience, only the council who paid for the report.

It was an expensive "nice try" for the city, but we should cut our losses now before we spend nay more money. If the city truly wanted to make the intersection better for other types of development and the roundabout is supposed to be the messiah of better and safer traffic flow, I say build the roundabout now. Then we'd really have a chance to see it firsthand and not just numbers and predictions on a piece of paper. Dan Crisafulli Agoura Hills