Preservationists See Freeway Link as Threat

Nearly 50 people, many with black ribbons around their arms, converged on an Old Town Calabasas landmark Monday to oppose a Ventura Freeway project that they say threatens the preservation of their old Western heritage.

Clustered on the porch of the 145-year-old Leonis Adobe, which was draped in black crepe paper for the occasion, the preservationists decried the $40-million Valley Circle Boulevard interchange and flyover bridge that would link Ventura Boulevard in Woodland Hills with Calabasas Road in Calabasas.

The project, which includes a widened north-south bridge at Valley Circle and a secondary east-west bridge over the Ventura Freeway, would force the removal of mature oak and pepper trees that shade the landmark adobe, opponents said. They also fear that the freeway improvements will lead to more traffic and development along Calabasas Road where a block-long collection of quaint storefronts have surrounded the adobe for 60 years.

‘Monday Mourning’

“Like Joni Mitchell says, ‘they’re going to pave paradise and put up a parking lot’,” Richard Tarlow, president of the Calabasas Chamber of Commerce, told the group gathered for the “Monday mourning” session at the adobe.

“We’re mourning what we think will be the passing of Old Town Calabasas if this project is implemented,” Tarlow said later. “And I don’t think I’m being the least bit melodramatic.”

Much of the opposition to the freeway expansion centers on the state Department of Transportation’s handling of the project. Community leaders say they are particularly angered by the lack of a comprehensive environmental impact study to assess how noise, traffic and other problems related to the expansion will affect their community.

Caltrans did an initial environmental assessment in 1988 and concluded that a more detailed study was unnecessary because the project would have no significant impact on the surrounding area, said Jeffery Bingham, the agency’s chief of environmental planning for Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

Community activists, intent on preserving a link to the past, disagree.

“I have great loyalty to the Leonis Adobe,” said historian Catherine Mulholland, whose great-grandparents were among the area’s pioneers. “It’s all that’s left of the frontier settlement. I would hate to see every vestige of the past obliterated. It creates a world where there is no yesterday, only a tomorrow, and that makes for kind of a shallow sense of life.”

In an effort to appease opponents, Caltrans has proposed erecting noise barriers around the adobe and the residential areas adjacent to the freeway, Bingham said. Replanting some of the trees that must be moved also has been discussed.

“We’re willing to work with the adobe people,” Bingham said, “but we haven’t had a very constructive dialogue.”

Construction of the interchange still is at least two years away. Once the initial environmental assessment receives approval from the U.S. Department of Transportation, which funds the project, Caltrans will begin detailed designs.

Need Acknowledged

Opponents acknowledge the need for a new freeway interchange at Valley Circle but say they want a less intrusive plan. And in a recent poll, opponents of the flyover bridge proposal outnumbered supporters 2 to 1, said Suzi Neff, a member of the Leonis Adobe’s board of directors.

But Jack Hallin, Caltrans’ chief of project development, said the flyover offers the best alternative because it would eliminate left turns onto the freeway and reduce congestion.

Meanwhile, longstanding tensions between Caltrans and the community escalated into a lawsuit last week. After repeated requests for information about the freeway project--and others like it--were ignored, the Leonis Adobe Assn. and El Camino Shopping Center filed suit, said their attorney, Jack H. Rubens.

The lawsuit, filed July 24, alleges that Caltrans violated the state’s Public Records Act and seeks a court order to gain access to a broad range of documents related to various freeway projects. Caltrans attorney David Simmes could not be reached for comment.