Chesebro EIR released





SERENE—Chesebro Meadow is a popular destination for horse lovers.

SERENE—Chesebro Meadow is a popular destination for horse lovers.

The battle to preserve Chesebro Meadow in Agoura Hills continued last month with the city issuing an environmental impact report about a proposed housing development in the meadow, followed by public comments on the matter.

Twenty of the 70 acres just east of Old Agoura, called Agoura Equestrian Estates by developer Benjamin Efraim, will be used to build 15 custom homes. The remaining 50 acres will be open space.

Old Agoura residents are fighting to keep the entire parcel protected. The land is considered prime real estate for both the builder and for the environmental forces who see the parcel as a key link to the nearby Liberty Canyon wildlife crossing.

Although the parcel lies in unincorporated Los Angeles County, Agoura Hills made an agreement with Efraim to annex the land so it can be developed under the watchful eye of the city, not the county.

The new environmental report triggered numerous responses.

Paul Edelman, deputy director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, said the report wrongly asserts that the project is not an essential component in the Santa Monica-Sierra Madre Mountains regional wildlife corridor.

“In a habitat linkage, spacing and buffer areas are critical,” Edelman said. A cluster of homes, guest homes, pools, tennis courts and other structures planned for the meadow will impact the potential wildlife passage, he said.

Superintendent David Szymanski of the National Park Service said placing the homes on 20 acres with 50 acres left as open space will not be enough to facilitate the movement of wildlife.

“The project is situated along the main entrance into the 16,000- acre Simi Hills parkland and core habitat region,” Szymanski wrote. “Acquisition would preserve existing open space within the wildlife corridor that provides forage and habitat for a number of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, sensitive plants.”

Syzmanski worried about the loss of Heritage Valley oak trees.

“Tree number 4 is one of the finer regional examples of valley oak, showing its full, vigorous growth form,” Syzmanski said. “The tree should be regarded as a witness tree and a keystone tree for wildlife.”

Agoura Hills resident Pat MacGregor said the city’s report is based on 15 units being built, but since the project allows guest homes with a kitchen, bathroom and separate parking on each lot, the unit count should be closer to 30. MacGregor took issue with an assertion that traffic generated by the development would be “less than significant.”

“I challenge that,” MacGregor said. “Chesebro Road is only 20 feet wide with curves on both sides of the proposed project road. There are no bike paths or pedestrian walks. Horses and bicyclists use this road all the time. The very name, Agoura Equestrian Estates, means horse trailers, feed trucks and related traffic making a turn on to this narrow curved road.”

But Agoura Hills Principal Planner Allison Cook said not all assertions made in the letters are accurate and that the city will be issuing its response in May.

For now, the court of public opinion leans toward keeping the land as open space.

In 2013, Agoura Hills acquired the former Heschel School property out of foreclosure from U.S. Bank for $630,000, but the deal was later struck down in court due to an error in the advertised price.

The city avoided ongoing litigation stemming from the purchase by selling the property to Efraim, who had acquired U.S. Bank’s interest in the parcel.

“All roads lead to litigation,” Mayor Illece Buckley Weber said of the city’s decision to recover its expenses and maximize its control over the land sooner rather than later.

Efraim and the bank agreed to pay back to the city its initial $630,000 investment, plus $200,000 in legal fees.

More—and expensive—legal wrangling would have followed had the city not worked with the bank and Efraim to sell the property and allow it to be developed, Buckley Weber told The Acorn.

But the deal between Efraim and the city will not stop the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy or other groups from purchasing the land and preserving it as open space if Efraim is a willing seller.

So far, no land agency has offered to buy the property.


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