Build it, they will come





The New Year is underway and it’s time for some thoughts about what to expect in the coming 12 months. The community has much to offer and its residents should be proud, but not all is perfect in paradise.

In Agoura Hills, time has come to finally break pavement on the new Kanan Road interchange. The wait has gone on long enough. The city has talked about the $25 million construction project—the biggest in the city’s history—for more than five years, but all talk and no action makes the voters restless. Same goes for the Agoura Village plan. This mixed-use, retail and residential town center planned for Agoura Road east of Kanan has been in the works as long as the interchange has and, again, nothing to show for it except plans and more plans.

This time next year it would be nice to report progress is at least being made on the interchange. But by then the traffic and gridlock will have gotten so bad again that we’ll be back where we started.

The coming year also will be a pivotal time for the city of Calabasas. As the months go by, the meter continues running on that city’s proposed new $38-million library and civic center at The Commons. Costs have escalated horribly and the city is now facing the possibility of having to dig into its reserves. Time to finally see action on this project, too, or else pay the piper.

To Oak Park, here’s hoping that government officials and residents can agree on a place to put the community’s new water tank. Not in my backyard, the residents of Churchwood Drive are saying. But it’s a water tank, not a big shopping center, and Oak Park needs the new structure badly. Let the expert water district officials dictate where it goes, not the NIMBY homeowners.

In Westlake Village, the Lowe’s home improvement store looks to be approved, but the vote will be close. When combining the revenue from Lowe’s and the proposed luxury auto dealerships next door with that of Costco, the new Dole center, and the rest of the city’s thriving business community, Westlake Village stands to become the richest community in America west of Ft. Knox. We suggest returning some of the tax windfall to the school district and the fearless homebuyers, without whom the city’s economic base would crumble.

In conclusion, the mullet haircut will not make a comeback in 2006, but the community’s joie de vivre will. In 2005 we faced fires, record rainfall, skyrocketing housing costs and mind-numbing traffic. The coming year can only get better and our spirits are high.


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