Woman Refuses to Be Uprooted From Her House After 42 Years

Mildred Heggen has lived in the same house in Thousand Oaks for 42 years. And she refuses to leave, even at the city’s request.

Thousand Oaks officials are asking the 81-year-old woman to sell her four-bedroom house to the city so it can widen adjoining Oakwood Drive and provide better access to a proposed civic auditorium in the city’s multimillion-dollar Jungleland project, named after the wild-animal theme park that once occupied the site.

City officials said they offered Heggen $379,000 for her house. Heggen says the house, which her late husband built, would bring $500,000. But, she said, it is worth much more to her than money.

And she--along with her family and friends--is fighting to keep it.

“There’s a lot of memories here,” she said.

On Monday and Tuesday, nearly 400 residents--including county Supervisor Madge Schaefer--signed petitions asking the city to leave Heggen alone. And on Friday, the woman’s friends are planning a sit-in in the front yard of the house to protest the city’s request.

According to Ken Russell, a friend of Heggen’s, the city could plan the road elsewhere.

“I usually stay low-key,” Russell said. “But I don’t think they have the right to come over and make this woman move for property they don’t need.”

“It’s madness,” said James Nelson Brown, Heggen’s attorney.

City Atty. Mark G. Sellers said the city is sensitive to Heggen’s concerns.

He said officials want to meet with her Thursday to discuss the issue.

“Yes, there is a chance she may be able to stay,” Sellers said. “We’re just talking right now. I can’t tell you the ultimate bottom line yet.”

Sellers said officials are looking at alternate routes for the road. They are considering moving the house to another location.

He said the city is encouraging Heggen to leave because her now quiet neighborhood will be completely transformed by the development. “It’s going to be drastically changed,” Sellers said. “It’s a matter of realizing that.”

But that doesn’t matter, Heggen said.

“When I’m through with it, I don’t care what they do with it,” Heggen said. “As long as I’m able to cope, I want to stay.”

In what Heggen views as an ironic twist, one city plan envisions bulldozing her house but leaving an old oak tree that stands outside her bedroom window. Such trees are protected by city law.

“They’re going to keep the oak tree but throw me out,” Heggen said. “What’s more important?”

Still, city officials say, the issue of moving Heggen has been blown out of proportion. They say they are not proceeding recklessly.

“It’s unfair,” Sellers said of public reaction against the city. “All we’re trying to do is open up the channels of communication.”

According to Ed Johnduff, the city’s administrative services manager, the city has offered Heggen a fair market price for the house.

In addition, the city has hired a relocation agency to help Heggen move, if it comes to that.

Sellers said the city is not “around the corner with bulldozers” ready to tear down the house.

Schaefer said she signed the petition because when she was on the City Council several years ago, it decided not to condemn land for the Jungleland project, which will include a new City Hall, hotel-office complex and civic auditorium on 20 acres near Thousand Oaks Boulevard and Conejo School Road.

She said she was upset to learn that officials now want to condemn private property.