Against the new hotel in Calabasas




At the Jan. 15, 2014 State of the City address, then-mayor Fred Gaines proudly announced that he had convened a special meeting of 60 real estate brokers and presented them with “the last handful of parcels available for commercial development in the city and we told them what we want,” urging them to “bring us a hotel. . . . We can help get that through.”

In that same month, January 2014, the New Home Company submitted an application for 149 residential units and a fourstory, 120-room hotel.

Four-story buildings are not allowed in Calabasas and would require a special variance, but on Feb. 20, 2014, still during Fred Gaines’s term as mayor, a slew of pro-development items mysteriously showed up on the planning commission’s agenda, one of which requested that the planning commission look into changing the city’s ordinance to allow four-story buildings in Calabasas.

The developer has told homeowners on more than one occasion that it was actually only interested in building residential homes, but that the city had insisted on a commercial component, preferably a hotel.

New Home has stated to homeowners that it intends to build the homes, but only secure entitlement to the hotel and then sell that entitlement to some other developer who will not be beholden to the design proposed by New Homes.

So it looks like Calabasas has Fred Gaines to thank for the monstrosity currently proposed. If reelected in November, he will be voting on the proposal.

Many large projects have been proposed for that site over the years, but none have succeeded, thanks to strong past City Councils whose priority and direction to staff was to preserve the semi-rural character of the area rather than to seek out developers.

Let’s keep it that way. Vote no on Gaines.

Mary Hubbard
Calabasas

Hubbard is president of the Malibu Canyon Community Association.



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