Thousand Oaks Extends Law Limiting Growth to Cover 1,400-Unit Project

The Thousand Oaks City Council has taken the unusual step of extending its growth-control ordinance about two years before it was to expire to ensure that the measure covers a proposed 1,400-unit housing development.

Measure A, originally approved by voters in 1980, was to expire at the end of 1990. It will now expire at the end of 1995.

The ordinance limits new construction to 500 units annually.

City officials said that if they hadn’t approved the extension Tuesday, Shapell Industries would have been bound by Measure A only until the original expiration date of Dec. 31, 1990. Shapell has submitted plans to develop about 1,400 homes at MGM Ranch, an 1,800-acre parcel in the northwestern corner of the city.

Under state law, developers are bound only by ordinances in effect the day that their projects are approved. The MGM Ranch project comes before the Thousand Oaks City Council this spring.

“We had to get Measure A extended this early, before the MGM project came before us,” said Councilman Lee Laxdal, an author of the original ordinance. “After eight years of Measure A, there’s still a need to regulate growth so we don’t overwhelm the infrastructure.”

Frank Faye, Shapell Industries’ project manager for MGM Ranch, declined to comment on the extension, except to say that the company will abide by Measure A.

But Paul Tryon, executive officer of the Building Industry Assn., a nonprofit trade organization for the construction industry, criticized the council’s action.

“The rest of the U.S. doesn’t have numerical caps on growth,” Tryon said. “Measure A may have been a good idea years ago, but it’s not necessary now because we’re very nearly built out here.”

City Planner John Prescott said 30% of the land in Thousand Oaks remains to be developed, an amount he called significant.

An exception to the 500-units-per-year rule is Long Ranch Co., which can receive an extra 150 units annually through 1994. It received the extra allotments under the terms of a 1986 settlement involving a federal lawsuit against the city.