Homeowners Ordered to Pay Stiff Sanctions to Developer

A federal judge has ordered a Thousand Oaks homeowner group to reimburse developers of a huge housing project for about $735,000 in legal fees and other costs.

U.S. District Judge Dickran Tevrizian Jr. ordered the Westlake North Property Assn. earlier this month to pay the sanctions--believed to be among the heaviest ever imposed on a homeowner group.

Tevrizian’s order follows his dismissal in February of a lawsuit filed by the association against the city of Thousand Oaks and two developers of the 2,257-unit Lang Ranch project.

Legal Fees

The sanctions include about $130,000 in legal fees and additional financing costs that Lang Ranch Co. and the Anden Group say they incurred because of the suit.

The judge said he imposed the sanctions because the homeowners should have voiced their objections to the project at public hearings in 1987.

The group of 500 Westlake North homeowners will appeal Tevrizian’s order to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, said Teresa Hooks, the association’s attorney. A hearing date has not been set.

The state attorney general’s office will file a brief supporting the homeowners because it is concerned that the sanctions will discourage residents from challenging other developments, said Deputy Atty. Gen. Antonette Cordero. She said the sanctions are among the heaviest imposed on a homeowner group and have generated concern in other groups.

Fighting Development

“It throws cold water on homeowners’ attempts to use legal means to fight development,” said Gerald Silver of Encino, director of the Alliance to Control Development in California, a coalition of about 1,200 homeowners associations. “We plan to help them raise money for legal costs to fight this.”

The homeowners said in their lawsuit that the city violated a 1980 growth-control ordinance by approving the Lang Ranch development east of the Moorpark Freeway between Avenida de los Arboles and Sunset Hills Boulevard. The ordinance limits new housing construction to 500 units a year.

The City Council approved the project in September over the protests of the homeowners, who said the project would create traffic and air-quality problems.

City officials said they had no choice but to approve the development under the terms of a settlement the city negotiated with the property owner in 1986. That settlement ended a suit filed in U.S. District Court by Lang Ranch Co., which claimed that the City Council agreed in 1971 to exempt the property from any growth-control law.

The homeowners’ suit said the city and the project’s developers improperly agreed to the settlement without consulting the public. The suit sought to have the city reassess the project’s environmental impact.