Over 100 Woodland Hills residents once again packed St. Mel Church for a second community meeting about the proposed development on the Woodland Hills Country Club site. An earlier meeting was held on December 12, and Mayor Karen Bass was invited and came to the valley several weeks ago to discuss the project with the grass roots Woodland Hills Neighborhood Collective that is fighting the development.
At the meeting this past Monday Councilman Bob Blumenfield fielded questions from the audience.
The focus was on what could be done to stall or cancel the project. The development proposal of 398 unit multifamily building, 223 apartments, 175 single family detached condominiums, and 97 affordable housing units for a very low-income household on the 19.9 acre site, was pushed through under State Law AB 2011, which allowed it because the developer Arrimus Capital claims Canoga Avenue was a “commercial corridor.”
Blumenfield has said about the project that, “As you know, there has been a lot of recent attention on new state laws that took away local control over certain land use policies, and we are seeing the unintended consequences of these laws playing out in our West Valley community. This massive housing proposal at the WHCC would have traditionally gone through many steps in order to be approved, including CEQA review and the Council’s Planning and Land Use Committee, which I Chair. Had the proposal been made before the new State laws were adopted, it would have.”
Residents are up in arms as to the danger of increased density during an emergency, and the access and ingress of emergency vehicles on the narrow Canoga Avenue.
The development has been submitted to the City of Los Angeles Planning Department, which asked for several cures in the plan, and as of this date has not signed off on it. Because this was proposed under a state law, there is actually very little the city can do to stop it. Residents are demanding a full CEQA environmental review, and are using the argument that the country club is a habitat for mountains lions and bats and therefore exempt from AB2011.
The collective has hired lawyers to investigate and ultimately file suit against the developer. The have also enlisted the support of the Mountain Restoration Trust and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.
For more information on the Woodland Hills Neighborhood Collective and their fight against this development visit wh-neighborhoodcollective.org. For the developer’s plan visit woodlandhillsproject.com.
