Agoura Hills to appeal Heschel West construction

No school wanted next to

Old Agoura

The Agoura Hills City Council voted unanimously last week to appeal the county's approval of Heschel West, a private Jewish day school which is being proposed just east of Old Agoura.

The city has 15 days to file an appeal, which will be heard by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. The county Department of Regional Planning approved a final environmental report for the school in 2005, but Agoura Hills officials said the report doesn't adequately address the impact that the 166,000square-foot school will have on the city. The nine-building school will accommodate 750 students.

Mike Kamino, Agoura Hills director of planning and community development, said the city is filing an appeal because the environmental report doesn't offer a timely solution to the problems the school is expected to cause.

"It's important that the (environmental impact report) is satisfactory to Agoura Hills," Kamino said.

The city also opposes the placement of the school's entrance and exit. To lesson the traffic burden on Old Agoura, Heschel is expected to improve the Chesebro Bridge and build a traffic roundabout. According to Kamino the report doesn't provide enough information about the impact of the roundabout and the bridge modifications.

According to an April 12 memo from Barry Wilter, an engineer with the county Department of Public Works, Heschel's proposed roundabout is not sufficient.

"(It) had a number of problems that were immediately apparent to me and to some of the Caltrans engineers," Wilter said.

The memo said the Heschel roundabout would not accommodate larger trucks and that the closely spaced entry and exit were unacceptable. Wilter added that Heschel's design plans were based on 2010 traffic projections. Caltrans requires projections to 2030.

'Above and beyond'

Proponents of the new school say Heschel has gone above and beyond its duty to protect the community.

"Certainly the regional planning approval is very much welcome and I'm sure long overdue," Heschel attorney Ben Reznik said. "This project has undergone an incredible amount of intense analysis and review by the county staff, by the planning commission itself, having held five public hearings, and so it is unfortunate that a neighboring city like the city of Agoura hills is not willing to respect that, and in a knee-jerk reaction, vote to appeal the decision on the very same day that the planning commission approved the school."

Louis Masry, president of the Agoura/Oak Park/Conejo Valley Chamber of Commerce, said that since Agoura Hills approved the Agoura Village project, which will add additional traffic to the city, the issue of Heschel's traffic should be nullified.

"The city's strongest argument is traffic and no judge will even listen to that argument knowing that the city is willing to put a project this large approximately one mile away," Masry said.

But city officials see the two projects and traffic issues differently.

"Heschel is not a city project," said Allison Cook, city planner for Agoura Village.

Agoura Hills expects Heschel to pay for the impacts of their project, Cook said.

'Sad day'

Councilmember Bill Koehler said he was "dismayed" that the regional planning commission approved Heschel. He said the commissioners had "turned a deaf ear" to the needs of the city.

"This is a very sad day," Mayor Denis Weber said. "We've tried to be good neighbors. . .To have this dismissed as if we were a gnat on their face, (it's) unbelievable."

Jess Thomas, president of the Old Agoura Homeowners Association, said the association talked to Heschel officials about an alternative site for the school.

"(It would be) a grand resolution if we could choose a site that we could all support," Thomas said.