Panel Signs Off on Land Swap, Putting Parks on the Hot Seat

A week after two of its members were ousted for delaying a decision on a complex land-swap deal, the Thousand Oaks Planning Commission voted early Wednesday to support the plan to preserve nearly 200 acres of open space.

In exchange for not building on a 191-acre site near Hill Canyon known as the Western Plateau, its owner and two other developers would be allowed to convert proposed senior and affordable housing units in the upscale Dos Vientos Ranch neighborhood into more profitable housing.

“This entire project is excellent planning,” said Jim Bruno, who joined the 3-1 vote in favor of the plan. “Problems are in the eye of the beholder.”

In a six-hour meeting that began Tuesday evening, Commissioner Claudia Bill-de la Pena cast the sole vote against the deal, citing legal concerns over zoning. Last week, then-commissioners Michael Farris and Nora Aidukas also had voiced concerns about the legality of the proposal. They were ousted by a divided City Council after delaying a recommendation on the plateau deal.

Farris was replaced by Forrest Frields, a former commissioner who had supported elements of the Dos Vientos development in the past. The council majority refused to replace Aidukas, an appointee of Councilwoman Linda Parks, with any of the substitutes Parks suggested. That position remains vacant.

With a recommendation in place, the deal now goes to the City Council for a vote on Tuesday. This places Parks, vying for a seat on the Ventura County Board of Supervisors, in the position of having to vote on the politically delicate land swap before the March 5 election.

If Parks supports the deal, detractors may accuse her of assisting developers, but to oppose the plan could hurt her reputation as a protector of open space.

Parks has not said how she will vote but said she is ready to make a decision. Councilmen Andy Fox, Dennis Gillette and Dan Del Campo, who voted to censure Parks and oust the two planning commissioners for allegedly conspiring to stall the controversial deal, have indicated they support the land swap.

Mayor Ed Masry’s objection has been that the agreement fails to provide new affordable housing for seniors. Fox said he hopes to nail down, by next week’s meeting, a guarantee from developers to build at least 120 affordable apartment units elsewhere in the city.

Parks’ camp contends the deal cannot be approved without a vote of the people, because a city ordinance gives residents say over development on land zoned as open space. City land-use maps from the 1990s indicate that a sliver of the land that could hold houses under the Western Plateau proposal is covered by that ordinance.

Lawyers for the city say those maps contained a printing error that has since been corrected, and that the land in question never fell under the growth restrictions.

Some critics assert the plan is a giveaway to developers. Shapell Industries has had development rights on the plateau for years but never built there because of the prohibitive costs of land grading and road building, opponents say. Shapell executives insist they will develop the plateau if the deal is not approved.

In a six-hour hearing that began Tuesday evening and ended shortly after midnight, Bruno said the plateau deal is legal and urged critics to drop opposition. But Bill-de la Pena said she could not recommend the measure unless residents were guaranteed a chance to vote on it.

“I definitely want to save the Western Plateau,” she said. “[But] there’s always two sides to an issue, and that’s why we have attorneys.”