Council Rejects Plan for Housing Complex

To the delight of residents of a mobile home park on Triunfo Canyon Road, the Westlake Village City Council has denied a developer’s request to build a senior housing complex on a nearby piece of land.

To allow the development to go forward, the council would have had to lift a Los Angeles County restriction on development of a four-acre parcel of land on Lindero Canyon Road. After hearing from residents of the Oak Forest Mobile Home Estates, the council members decided to leave the restriction as is, especially because it helps drain off excess water during rainstorms.

“That is a unique piece of property,” said Councilwoman Betty De Santis, who lives near the mobile home park. “If it’s really raining hard, you’ve got flooding there, but we have an environmental piece there that takes in all this water.”

Kept as open space, the land provides a natural flood plain, residents said. If it were developed, they feared the water would be diverted to their homes.

“This is more than ‘not in my backyard’ activism,” said mobile home resident Sybil Nisenholz. “This environment does not lend itself to the kind of development that was proposed. We have had torrential rains that come down our creek, and without that area for the water to flow into, we would be flooded out.”

Representatives of the developing firm could not be reached for comment.