Agoura Group Fights Plan to Link Roads

Fearing that the extension of a dead-end street will clog their exclusive, tranquil neighborhood with tractor-trailers, cars and buses, a group of Agoura Hills homeowners is gathering petitions against the city proposal.

Residents say the extension would funnel commercial traffic from the Ventura Freeway through Old Agoura, one of the oldest residential areas of the city of 20,000.

At a standing-room-only meeting at Chesebro Park in Agoura Hills, nearly 100 residents vowed to fight the expansion, which would link their neighborhood to a developing commercial zone to the west.

The group plans to give city officials a petition with more than 400 signatures protesting the proposal at a hearing Feb. 10 before City Council, said Ron Troncatty, president of the Old Agoura Homeowners Assn. The council will vote later next month on whether to establish an assessment district to pay for the project.

Rural Atmosphere

Although it is less than a mile from the freeway, the upper-middle-class neighborhood of about 500 residents has a rural atmosphere. It is zoned for a minimum of half-acre agricultural lots and many residents own horses, chickens, pigs and other animals, Troncatty said.

“We bought out here and built out here because we like the rural atmosphere,” said Eric Haupt, the homeowners’ vice president.

The proposal is to extend Canwood Street, which runs just north of and parallel to the Ventura Freeway, a little less than a mile to the east, from its dead end at Derry Avenue to Chesebro Road. That would make it easier for traffic exiting at Chesebro to get to the Canwood commercial area, said Paul Williams, director of city planning for Agoura Hills.

$2-Million Price Tag

The two-lane extension and a bridge over a creek would cost about $2 million, financed by the owners of 16 parcels of land along Canwood Street who want the extension, officials said.

The largest assessment, $1.2 million, would be paid by a company that recently broke ground on a 150-room hotel at the current end of Canwood, City Engineer Henry Van Dyke said. Approved by the Agoura Hills City Council in 1985, the hotel will be completed sometime next year, Williams said.

Plans for the road have been completed, bids have been accepted and the city is contacting property owners to purchase right of way, Van Dyke said.

The extension and assessment district were among several recommendations of a 1984 city study of traffic patterns in the Canwood Street corridor, Van Dyke said.

Circuitous Access

The commercial zone is now accessible from the freeway by well-traveled Kanan Road, or by Chesebro via a circuitous route through the Old Agoura neighborhood.

The city’s idea was to provide a road allowing access to the commercial district without disrupting the residential areas, officials said, but residents say the extension would be disruptive.

Troncatty said alternatives advocated by the group include building an exit between Chesebro and Kanan roads or building a new road connecting Chesebro to Palo Comado Canyon Road.

But city officials said terrain and the presence of businesses make both suggestions unworkable.

Old Agoura already gets traffic from Agoura Hills High School and there are plans to build a library and post office in the area, Troncatty said.

“I feel sorry for the current City Council because they inherited this and they are working the best solution that they can conceive, but I don’t feel we have to be the ones who solve the problem for them,” Troncatty said.