County Allows Calabasas to Put Cityhood on the Ballot : Government: The approval from the Board of Supervisors ends years of effort. But developers fear a new city council might halt construction.

Despite developer protests, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has decided to allow 27,000 Calabasas residents to vote on whether to form an independent city.

The board acted without debate Thursday, setting the election for March 5.

“We’re in, we’re in!” Arnold Sank, a vice president of the Calabasas Cityhood Committee, rejoiced after the meeting.

The election will culminate more than five years of efforts to bring the cityhood question before residents. Members of the Cityhood Committee said they believe most residents want to see their community become an independent city.

But in the next few months, Sank said, he and other cityhood supporters will mount a campaign to persuade voters that cityhood would be preferable to remaining an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County.

Dennis Washburn, another vice president of the cityhood group, said a city government would be able to respond to community concerns faster than the county government, and could develop community resources such as parks and a senior citizens center.

“It’s local control of local problems,” he said.

Some developers in the area have said they feared that a new city government might try to halt building. Michael Balikian, an attorney who represents Freeway Properties III, which owns two acres of commercially zoned property at Las Virgenes and Agoura roads, told the supervisors that the election should not take place until a lawsuit filed by the developer has been resolved.

Freeway Properties filed suit last month in Los Angeles County Superior Court against the Local Agency Formation Commission, which in August gave its consent to the proposed incorporation of Calabasas. The lawsuit charges that LAFCO violated the California Environmental Quality Act by failing to require an environmental impact report on the incorporation plan.

LAFCO has previously stated that a change in government would not have a significant impact on the environment, and that no EIR was necessary. But the lawsuit contends that the new city government would have the power to change or ignore regional transportation plans, particularly the planned extension and improvement of several major roads. It also says LAFCO failed to consider what might happen if the new city cannot pay for the fire services that the county is expected to provide.

Roger Stanard, who also represents Freeway Properties, said the city should not be allowed to incorporate until those issues are studied. He said he was surprised that the supervisors set an election while litigation is pending.

But Meredith Jury, a private attorney defending LAFCO in the suit, said the developer has no legal grounds to delay the election, since he failed to complain about the roads and fire services issues during public hearings that were held before LAFCO gave the go-ahead on incorporation. Officials also said the Board of Supervisors had no choice but to set an election once LAFCO acted. The only way they could have put off a decision would have been if a majority of the registered voters in the area would have filed a written protest.

Jury said she will ask that the suit be dismissed at a court hearing scheduled for Nov. 9.

Cityhood supporters also said they doubt that the lawsuit would affect the election, in which voters will also be asked to select five members for a city council. The election will be decided by a simple majority vote.

“When you organize a city, you don’t generally change the environment,” Sank said. “We are not changing anything that would affect the air, or the water.”

In 1988, LAFCO rejected a petition for incorporation after a financial study determined that the new government would be $450,000 in debt after its first year. But a new report completed in June found that the sales tax base had increased and that the new city would be financially viable.