Developers Settle Suit Against Thousand Oaks : Lang Ranch Exempted From Growth Controls, Allowed to Build 2,257 Homes

Developers of the 2,500-acre Lang Ranch in Thousand Oaks agreed Monday to drop a $67-million suit against the city in exchange for exemption of the massive housing project from local growth controls.

The Lang Ranch Co. will build 2,257 single-family homes, condominiums and apartments on its property during the next seven years in the negotiated settlement approved by U.S. District Judge Dickran Tevrizian. In their suit, Lang Ranch developers contended that the city could not include the project under the its 1980 growth-control ordinance because the City Council had agreed 12 years earlier to exempt the housing development from any future building limits.

Before the settlement was signed, the judge said in court that he believed that the city would have likely lost the suit and been subject to a “judgment of several million dollars” had a settlement not been reached.

‘Reasonable Settlement’

“We settled in order to avoid long and costly litigation,” said David Green, managing partner of the Lang Ranch Co. “We think it’s a reasonable settlement.”

The Lang Ranch property is east of the Moorpark Freeway, approximately between Avenida de los Arboles and Sunset Hills Boulevard.

The Westlake Village-based development firm had a 1968 annexation agreement with Thousand Oaks that allowed construction of about 6,600 homes in exchange for donation of 500 acres of parkland, Thousand Oaks City Atty. Mark Sellers said. The Lang Ranch Co. donated the park property and had built about 2,400 homes before the project stalled in 1980 when voters approved a growth-control measure that limited new housing permits to 500 a year, he said.

In 1983, Lang Ranch Co. filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the city had violated its constitutional rights by reneging on its previous promise not to limit the number of homes in the project.

Building Permit Allocation

In the settlement, Lang will receive an immediate allocation of 1,050 building permits and will be guaranteed an additional 150 permits a year until the project is completed. The 150 permits will be in addition to the 500 permitted in the city each year.

The final settlement reduces the total number of homes that will be built in the Lang Ranch project by about 40%, Councilman Frank Schillo said.

“If we hadn’t reached a settlement, we would have gotten another 3,700 homes instead of 2,200,” Schillo said. “We could have ended up a lot worse if this had gone to litigation.”

The Lang Ranch Co. agreed to donate an additional 848 acres of its property for parks and open space, pay $750,000 for development of city parklands, make some street improvements on Westlake Boulevard and use 672 of its building permits to construct apartments, according to the settlement.

The city also agreed in the settlement to allow a second firm, the Anden Group of Covina, to construct 425-unit condominium project on the Lang Ranch property. The Anden Group had sought to join the Lang Ranch Co. suit after its project was rejected by the City Council last spring.