Mary Wiesbrock of Save Open Space and I managed to get ourselves to the City of Agoura Hills General Plan Workshop late this afternoon. A consultant gave a very informative power point presentation, and it looks like a lot of thought and consideration is going into creating this plan update.
Then, Mary and I got to speak to the Council, consultant and staff, along with 2 other residents. I was called on first, and unfortunately, did not check how long I had to speak, and still had a lot to say when the timer chimes sounded. Oh well…I still got to raise my concerns about the possibility of changing the designation to mixed use for the three shopping centers at the intersection of Thousand Oaks Blvd. and Kanan Road. This is where the consultant said they want to have the option of adding forty residential units. He said this was to “incentiveize” improvements and upgrades to the centers.Â
My question was if there could be other ways to encourage improvements, and I did talk about a lot of the traffic problems I have encountered at that location. Mary also spoke in criticism of mixed use there, as did a former member of the Agoura Hills Planning Commission. Here is a link to the city website: http://ci.agoura-hills.ca.us/index.aspx?page=182Â
Posted by Janna Orkney
Jeanne Cope // Oct 28, 2009 at 11:26 PM
Is” incentivize” just another way to say some developer wants to make a lot of money? While they make their money are they thinking about the quality of life for those of us stuck in traffic at TO and Kanan for 30 minutes some mornings. Will the developer just take the money and run as usual?
Mary Wiesbrock // Oct 29, 2009 at 10:26 AM
Please click on the City of Agoura Hills web site and send a message to all the City Council members to oppose multiuse at these neighborhood shopping centers!
If this is not changed, we will get multistory additions to all three mostly low lying shopping centers. This means hundreds of more car trips per day on Kanan and Thousand Oaks Blvd. The intersection there takes three lights to get through at the peak am traffic hour which puts it at gridlock level now.
Request that the City Council vote no to this multiuse general plan change to support no more density/hence no more traffic there!
Mary Wiesbrock