Development alert

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    We have worked tirelessly for decades to protect our wild areas, our open space and the Santa Monica Mountains. They are in danger once again from increasing development by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

    Several years ago, our sister cities of Calabasas, Agoura Hills and Westlake Village and the water and school districts conceived the North Area Plan to control the threat of rampant development in our open space in the Santa Monica Mountains.

    Recently, without public comment but with heavy lobbying by big developers, the Regional Planning Commission weakened the plan by upzoning many areas around Peter Strauss Ranch, Kanan and Cornell Roads, the Mulholland Scenic Corridor and the Santa Monica Mountain Recreation area including Malibu Creek State Park.

    On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors will hold a public hearing to approve the revised North Area Plan. If this plan is implemented, traffic on Pacific Coast Highway. will increase dramatically. Since the 101 Freeway is already overloaded and the Board of Supervisors has done nothing about that, increasing development over the hill means that the hundreds of homes planned for those areas will surely dump more traffic on PCH, not to mention destroy the splendor of our mountains.

    The Cornell Preservation Organization (www.ladyface.com) has chartered buses to take people down to the meeting. (Remember the trek to L.A. to oppose sewers?) If you would like to go to show your support for retaining the original North Area Plan, call 818-734-0775. The buses will leave the Von’s parking lot at Kanan Road. and Thousand Oaks Blvd. (take Kanan Road. across the freeway to the shopping center) at 8 a.m. Tuesday.

    Show that Malibu still cares about our mountains.

    Sandra Stafford