Public commenters ask Agoura Hills council to remove Kanan Road shopping centers from housing inventory, citing traffic and evacuation risks

Residents urged the Agoura Hills City Council on March 25 to remove three Kanan Road shopping centers from the citys housing element site inventory, saying the locations are too congested and pose wildfire-evacuation and traffic risks.

Mary Weisbrock, representing Save Open Space Santa Monica Mountains and a 50-year Agoura Hills resident, told the council she and other residents want alternatives to the shopping-center sites and asked the council to replace those locations with less-congested options. "We are requesting you to add alternatives and remove the controversial congested unsafe locations in our city's housing element site inventory," Weisbrock said. She suggested making the nursery site 100% affordable and said state and federal housing funds, and a $10 billion housing bond referenced for an upcoming November ballot, could help expand the number of affordable units on that site.

Why this matters: Speakers said the shopping-center sites could allow a combined total of 564 housing units as currently listed in the inventory and argued that placing significant new density on Kanan Road would worsen already heavy school and commuter traffic and endanger evacuation routes during wildfires.

Fourth grader Sarah Stevens, who attends Willow Elementary School next to the Kanan shopping centers, told council members the road is already congested during school arrival and pickup times and pleaded, "Please do not allow 564 apartments at the three Kanan shopping centers." Her remarks emphasized parents concerns about safety and traffic near schools.

Cindy Larson, a longtime resident who said her home burned in the Woolsey Fire, focused on evacuation risk. Larson said the state requires the city to accommodate about 199 new low-income apartment units but that the council can choose the locations for those units. She urged the council not to site large-scale housing projects on Kanan Road because it is a major evacuation corridor and described the difficulties of evacuating people and animals during past fires: "Evacuation was extremely difficult," she said, describing rescuing animals and navigating blocked roads.

Speakers proposed alternatives to adding density on Kanan Road: Weisbrock proposed expanding affordable housing at the nursery site (she said the landowner is willing to work with the city and suggested a larger affordable project could yield roughly 65 units instead of 10), converting underused office buildings near city hall into apartments, and using underutilized parking lots for housing. She also referenced a prior planning decision by Planning Director Allison Cook about land-value and improvement-ratio considerations.

Council action: The remarks occurred during the public-comment portion of a goal-setting workshop; council members did not vote on housing-site changes during the session. The meeting did approve the full workshop agenda at the start of the session before public comment.

What comes next: No formal change to the housing element site inventory was made at the workshop. Commenters urged the council to consider alternatives and to coordinate any inventory changes with the city's general plan amendment process and potential state or bond funding.