Thousand Oaks Council Rejects Condo Proposal

Despite the prospect of a lawsuit, the Thousand Oaks City Council has rejected a controversial proposal to build a 576-unit condominium project in northeast Thousand Oaks, the largest city development to be considered so far this year.

The 3-2 vote came in response to an appeal by The Anden Group, a Covina-based developer, to an earlier Planning Commission decision that rejected the project. It followed a five-hour public hearing Tuesday night at which many of the 150 people present testified against the project.

Charles Cohen, a lawyer representing the developer group, told council members that the proposal complies with all city ordinances and is designed to accommodate “everything you could possibly demand.”

He could not be reached Wednesday for comment.

Council members complained that the project was too large, would send traffic pouring through residential streets and was incompatible with the surrounding neighborhoods of single-family homes.

The meeting was marked by the presence of a court reporter hired by Anden to record the proceedings, as well as an unexpected presentation by Cohen of written reports rebutting earlier testimony. The moves were seen by council members as a signal of possible litigation, and council members briefly convened a private executive session to discuss their legal standing in the case.

“I think it was meant to be an intimidating situation, but no council member was intimidated,” Mayor Alex T. Fiore said.

Fiore said that, in the city’s 22-year history, he could not recall a builder ever having filed suit against the city because its project was rejected.