Thousand Oaks Drafts Plan to Save Wildwood Mesa Expanse

Thousand Oaks city officials Friday unveiled a complex plan to allow the privately owned Wildwood Mesa, which was scheduled for residential development, to be preserved as open space.

The proposal, which Mayor Alex T. Fiore and other officials announced at a City Hall press conference, followed three months of negotiations by developers and city officials and is scheduled to come before the five-member City Council for approval Tuesday.

Under the plan, Fiore said, Orange Builders, which owns 240 acres of the mesa and at first was planning to build 170 homes, would exchange 228 acres of that property for 30 acres in the city’s North Ranch area. The 30-acre parcel is part of a 41-acre site owned by Prudential Insurance Co. The remaining 11 acres would be kept for a park.

Prudential and Maler-Dinow, a developer in the city’s North Ranch area, would grade the 30-acre site at a cost of $650,000, which they would assume, making it ready for new home construction.

Prudential would then receive 156 unused housing allotments and Maler-Dinow would receive 52 allotments. Each allotment authorizes a developer to build one dwelling unit. Under the city’s growth-control ordinance, the city permits 500 allotments annually.

Allotments Left Over

The allotments for Prudential and Maler-Dinow were left over when several developers abandoned projects that had already been approved.

The city and the Conejo Recreation and Park District would then gain control of 228 acres of the Wildwood Mesa, which would then be consolidated with the existing Wildwood Regional Park and other present and future open-space preserves in the northwest part of the Conejo Valley, according to the plan.

Orange Builders would still retain 12 acres of the eastern part of the mesa property, and would be allowed to develop 51 single-family homes, Fiore said.

“It’s a win-win-win-win situation,” said Fiore. “Everyone is happy. The developers win, the city wins, the parks win and the people win. I’m quite happy. I’m sure the plan will be approved Tuesday.”

The plan was formulated by a four-member committee appointed by the council “because of the tremendous importance to the community of natural open space in general and the specific value of the Wildwood Mesa in that context,” according to a statement by the committee. Fiore said the mesa contains several sensitive plants and trees.

As part of the deal, the three developers would also contribute $50,000 each to the park district to be used in developing parkland, Fiore said.

If approved by the council, the plan would still require several public hearings before it could be implemented, Fiore said.