Traffic Study : Fair Attempts to Head Off Protests

Renaissance Pleasure Faire officials will commission a traffic study they believe will show Moorpark residents that holding the fair in eastern Ventura County would not choke local streets, a festival official said Thursday.

Phyllis Patterson, the fair’s founder and general manager, said the study is necessary to reassure Moorpark residents, many of whom oppose the use of a proposed fair site between Moorpark and Thousand Oaks because of concerns over increased traffic.

Many Moorpark residents said this week they have no doubt that holding the annual festival on a 130-acre site south of the city would snarl already congested streets.

The site, in the Tierra Rejada Greenbelt, an unincorporated area of eastern Ventura County, is about a quarter of a mile west of the Conejo Creek Freeway, California 23. It is bordered by Tierra Rejada Road on the north, Moorpark Road on the south and east and by hills on the west.

Chaos Predicted

“They ought to come up here and take a look at that Tierra Rejada Road at 5 o’clock at night,” said Gail Reeder, 42, a Moorpark resident living near the site. “If you add more cars, it’ll just be chaos.”

Patterson said the festival would be held on weekends to avoid rush-hour traffic.

Fair officials announced Tuesday that a one-year lease had been signed with Watt Consolidated Partnership of Santa Monica to rent the land for eight consecutive weekends beginning May 6.

Organizers had looked for a place for the annual event since April, 1988, when the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission approved a request to develop the fair’s longtime site in Agoura.

Before the fair can open, Ventura County must grant a conditional-use permit for the site. Fair organizers have said they hope to have the permit by spring. But Paul Porter, a Ventura county planner, said the process could take six months to a year.

County planners will consult with officials of Moorpark and Thousand Oaks before deciding on the permit, Porter said.

On Wednesday, Moorpark City Council members said they had received numerous phone calls from residents opposed to the proposed site. The council voted unanimously to ask fair organizers to explain their proposal to the city.

Heavy Congestion

Dennis Delzeit, Moorpark’s city engineer, said Tierra Rejada Road, the northern boundary of the proposed site and the main road leading to it, is already heavily congested, especially at rush hours. The city plans to widen the two-lane road this summer to make it four lanes because residents use it as a southern access route to the city, Delzeit said.

Patterson said the results of the traffic study, to be conducted by an as-yet undetermined company, will be presented to the Moorpark council early next month.