Petitions Against Westlake North Project Face Test

A citizen group’s attempt to reverse the City Council’s approval of the largest development project in Westlake Village history was put on hold Friday because of a legal question that city officials said could invalidate the group’s petitions.

Last month, the Westlake Village City Council approved Westlake North, a residential and commercial project on 129 acres north of the Ventura Freeway and east of Lindero Canyon Road.

After the final vote, an opposition group called Citizens to Preserve and Protect Westlake Village Zoning began circulating petitions to force the council to repeal its approval of the development or submit the question to a binding referendum.

John Levey, one of the petition circulators, said that the group opposes the project’s four-story commercial buildings and that the Westlake Village general plan calls for a two-story limit. The group also maintains that project approval was “ramrodded” by the council, he said.

Westlake Village officials are uncertain whether the petitions meet the requirements of state election law, City Manager Larry W. Bagley said. The law requires such petitions to include the number or title of the targeted city law along with its text, Bagley said.

The Westlake North petitions cited the city ordinance number but did not include the text, which, in its entirety, would have amounted to a stack of documents at least an inch thick, Bagley said. The town’s city attorney is expected to make a ruling on the petitions’ legality next week, he said.

The deadline for submitting the petitions was 5 p.m. Friday. During the afternoon, the group brought petitions with 681 unverified signatures to City Hall.

If the petitions are legal and 483 of the signatures are valid, the council must decide between reversing its decision or putting the matter to voters, Bagley said.