Calabasas : Builder, Residents End Talks on Park Centre

Talks have broken off between a developer and a group of Calabasas residents who were trying to persuade him to scale back his plans for a commercial center, according to the group’s spokesman.

Steve Sklar said that after six months of negotiations with John Kilroy, Sklar’s group was unable to persuade the developer to commit himself in writing to a compromise.

Sklar said that his group will push for a referendum election on the 1.3-million-square-foot Calabasas Park Centre at Parkway Calabasas and Calabasas Road. For six months Kilroy has been meeting quietly with the group, which last year gathered enough signatures to force a referendum on the project.

Among the major sticking points, Sklar and others say, is the size of a planned movie theater. Kilroy reportedly wants no fewer than 1,700 seats, but Sklar’s group says that’s far too many.

Mark Ossola, vice president of Kilroy Industries, said Monday he was surprised that Sklar’s group had decided to break off the talks. “I thought we were close to an agreement, myself,” he said.

He said that Kilroy Industries is willing to continue meeting with Sklar’s group “as long as there is a reason to meet.”

At the same time, Kilroy Industries has been meeting publicly with a community task force formed to help the developer devise a master plan for the project--a condition imposed by the City Council when it approved the project in 1994.

Task force chairman Allan Cooper said Monday that the master plan process was going smoothly, despite Kilroy’s problems with Sklar’s group. Ossola and Cooper said that a tentative master plan is almost complete.

They said that later this month or in early May a public meeting will be held on the proposed plan, which must be approved by the City Council. If all goes as planned, they said, the council will vote on it in the fall.