No on N


Measure N is not about affordable housing: It is about a large development expansion.

AvalonBay is the big 600-unit apartment complex on the west side of Las Virgenes, south of Meadow Creek Lane just north of Lost Hills Road.

Formerly called Archstone, it was bought in 2013 by AvalonBay, a multi-billion-dollar Arlington, Va. company that owns apartment complexes in 12 states with over 85,000 apartments.

Of AvalonBay’s 600 units between Las Virgenes and Lost Hills roads, 120 were reduced-rent affordable housing as part of the initial development agreement.

The rent subsidy was supposed to last another 10 years, but AvalonBay deliberately ended it early by paying off the bond to which it was tied and notifying 120 units that their rent was being converted to market rate without informing city or county officials.

Renters from 40 units left and AvalonBay converted those apartments to market rate. It isn’t offering to include them in Measure N.

AvalonBay bypassed the city’s planning process and instead hired paid signature-gatherers to sweep the city for signatures to approve a ballot initiative asking residents, most of whom know little to nothing about the project, to directly approve a large expansion of 161 additional units in 11 buildings.

However, when Avalon had gathered the required signatures approving the ballot initiative, it then attempted to subvert even that process by asking the City Council to directly approve the development without going to the voters. Three council members voted to put the development proposal on the ballot.

Debate about affordable housing in Calabasas is for another day. The city is not being sued by the state or forced to convert open space to low-income apartments as AvalonBay threatens if its development is not approved.

Most voters don’t have any idea what is even included in the development proposal or whether it meets city standards. They are just supposed to vote yes or no.

So please vote no on N.

Mary Hubbard
Calabasas

Calabasas citizens are being asked to vote on whether or not AvalonBay should be allowed to build 160 more units on its property without being governed by any requirements or restrictions the city would normally be entitled to for new construction.

This situation has come about because AvalonBay chose to pay the financing bond off 10 years early, which released 80 units from mandatory affordability requirements, as well as collected signatures from a sufficient number of residents who thought they were doing the right thing by signing AvalonBay’s petition to allow the new building to occur.

We acknowledge that it has the absolute right to repay the bond if it wishes, and ask to build additional units.

AvalonBay’s petition circulators, however, did not always properly describe the petition as several citizens have already attested.

It did not contact the city to discuss its desire to build additional units. It simply bullied ahead in an attempt to do an end run around city requirements. The result is AvalonBay now faces an election that we, the people of this city, intend for it to lose.

AvalonBay authorities quite cynically used a number of its low-income renters to plead with the city to allow it to do what it wants so the 80 previously affordable units would remain, and it would not have to face a citywide vote.

It continues to use them to pluck at the heartstrings of Calabasas residents in an effort to win yes votes on Measure N.

Make no mistake: AvalonBay is the reason the affordable units have been removed from the marketplace. It can return those units to affordable if it wants, and even put more into the program.

Had you, AvalonBay, acted like decent corporate citizens and discussed the situation, your reception would have been much different.

Even if we are seen to cut off our noses to spite our faces, you’ve made us so angry that we are bound and determined you’re not going to get your way.

And whatever you ultimately get to build is going to cost you a heck of lot more money than it would have had you acted decently from the beginning.

Please vote no on Measure N.

Karmen Brower
Calabasas

Vote no on Measure N. A big money corporation wants to bypass City of Calabasas procedures and codes.

I moved to Calabasas 47 years ago. I was co-founder of the Calabasas Park Home Owners Association and fought for cityhood so we would avoid this type of thing.

Over the years, we developed a general plan and municipal codes to guide development in the city.

Now we a have deep-pocketed developer, AvalonBay, attempting to bypass these safeguards to add 161 apartments spread across 11 three-story buildings at their 600- unit apartment complex on Las Virgenes Road.

There has been practically no input from the city or its residents. The only input was when the initiative came before the Calabasas City Council. Even then the council’s input was limited. They could only decide on whether to adopt the initiative as is, or put it on the ballot for residents to decide.

AvalonBay argued strongly in favor of the initiative being approved immediately by the council. Fortunately, a majority of the City Council—James Bozajian, Mary Sue Maurer and Alicia Weintraub—put it on the ballot for you, the voters, to decide. It is Measure N on the March 3 election ballot.

If Measure N is approved, it would result in more than 1,000 additional vehicle trips along the Las Virgenes Scenic Corridor in a beautiful and vulnerable area that is already subject to heavy traffic.

Add to this even more traffic from: the 121-room Rondell Oasis Hotel that is under construction; the 78-unit partially built Paxton townhomes; and the proposed 180-unit condominium West Village Development that includes a commercial/retail building—and you have gridlock.

The safety of those depending on this major disaster evacuation route is already in jeopardy. Every additional development needs to be scrutinized with respect to how it will affect those who already live there. That scrutiny is missing from the AvalonBay initiative.

Do not allow a precedent to be set that encourages deep-pocket developers to write their own ticket to build anything anywhere in the city. Vote no on Measure N.

Harold Arkoff
Calabasas

Calabasas City Councilmember James Bozajian said it best. In his opposition to AvalonBay’s Measure N initiative at the Nov. 21 City Council meeting, he stated the following:

The AvalonBay initiative circumvents, undermines and usurps local control of land use decision making, which, after all, is a primary reason why Calabasas incorporated some 29 years ago.

AvalonBay and its predecessors link to Malibu Meadows and Archstone Calabasas, have already had the benefit of building out a very large project with the proviso that they set aside units for affordable housing.

To now come back and demand 161 additional market rate units with no new affordable housing in order to maintain what is already there is nothing short of extortion.

AvalonBay’s manipulation of its own tenants, who are the most vulnerable and least powerful of this multifaceted battle, is reprehensible and deplorable. Morally and ethically, I cannot accede to such heavy-handed strong-arm tactics.

In essence, all of California’s carefully crafted statutes would be willfully and categorically ignored with zero oversight or mitigation whatsoever.

The initiative’s proponents are attempting to pass it off as open space preservation or neighborhood preservation, yet nothing could be further from the truth.

Not one inch of open space will be preserved by this proposal, and there is nothing to suggest that any form of neighborhood preservation is contemplated.

Finally, to the residents of AvalonBay, I am very sorry—sorry for the manner in which AvalonBay has sought to manipulate you, the City Council and all the residents of Calabasas.

Had AvalonBay actually been sincere in its stated intention of maintaining affordable housing on its properties, they would have brought this proposal forward many years ago. Instead, for their own convenience, they sought to quietly manufacture a phony crisis, and then ambush everyone with an untenable proposition.

If they succeed, before long we will suffer from the kind of uncontrolled and unplanned development that is, ironically, the polar opposite of what motivates people to live here.

Our community will be transformed into unrecognizable, unplanned urban sprawl—a place where no one will want to live.

Valerie Burkholder
Calabasas