Council Approves MGM Ranch Development : Thousand Oaks: A Planning Commission recommendation to reject the plan is overridden. Environmentalists fear encroachment on wildlife and ancient Indian sites.

The Thousand Oaks City Council on Wednesday approved a new development plan for a massive housing and industrial complex on the MGM Ranch, despite environmentalist concerns that it would unearth an ancient Indian village and destroy wildlife.

Council members voted 3 to 2 in favor of the plan, which forfeits 29 acres that had been set aside as open space in the proposed 1,862-acre Rancho Conejo development. The 29 acres of rolling hills, a possible site of Chumash artifacts, would be graded to make way for a continuation high school, a recycling center and a recreational-vehicle storage yard.

“I’m concerned that we are losing our archeological sites and wetlands,” said Tom Maxwell, an archeologist and chairman of the Conejo Valley Sierra Club. He said the club plans to challenge the developer’s grading permits at future council meetings. “We can’t afford to lose any more,” he said.

The council meeting that ended at 3 a.m. Wednesday was the latest step in an ongoing struggle over Shappell Industries’ proposal to build 1,000 houses, 400 apartments and a 102-acre industrial park at the former MGM Ranch located northwest of the intersection of Lawrence Drive and Rancho Conejo Boulevard.

In approving the new plan, the council disregarded the Planning Commission’s recommendation to reject it because its environmental impact report failed to study the extent of damage to Indian artifacts, wildlife and endangered plants.

Councilwomen Judy Lazar and Elois Zeanah voted against the deal, which they believe eliminates ecologically sensitive canyons in one of the last remaining open spaces in Thousand Oaks.

But other council members argued that the development would still provide nearly 1,300 acres of parks, golf courses and open space on the property.

“You have a wide list of social, economical and educational benefits that far surpasses the damage to the environment,” Councilman Alex Fiore said. “I think it’s the right thing to do.”

Many of the 150 people who attended the hearing remained through the seven hours of testimony to express their support for the project.

But the plan was strongly protested by environmentalists and archeology experts, including Save Open Space and the Ventura County Archeological Society. Twenty-five speakers urged the council to preserve endangered plants, oak trees and wetlands on the ranch.

Richard Angulo, a representative of the California Indian Council, a group that includes both Gabrieleno and Chumash Indians, urged preservation of ancient Chumash sites.

“We are losing our burial grounds and the lands that go with it,” Angulo said.

Under the new development plan, Shappell will fill a canyon with dirt to create a 5.5-acre site for the Conejo Valley Unified School District to build a continuation high school.

In grading the site and surrounding roads, developers plan to move 2 million cubic yards of dirt, a process that will involve bulldozing hillsides and constructing artificial slopes.

Lazar said benefits of a school site do not outweigh the impact of grading and filling natural canyons.

“The pads, the slopes, filling in the canyons to create those building pads is a really major problem,” Lazar said.

But school officials say the district cannot wait any longer for a new continuation high school.

Supt. William Seaver said officials spent a year finding a new location for the Conejo Valley High School, now located in a residential area on Newbury Road. The site has already been approved by the state Department of Education.

The 67-year-old school, for students with academic problems, would be difficult to renovate, said school board President Richard Newman.

Support for the new development plan was motivated in part by the announcement that a major medical supply company plans to purchase land and build headquarters in the Rancho Conejo development.

Representatives of Baxter Healthcare Corp. announced that rejection of the new plan could jeopardize the construction of a manufacturing plant and division headquarters in the development.

The company manufactures and distributes a protein used for treating hemophiliacs. Baxter plans to bring up to 700 new jobs to the city, said Bruce Meltzer, senior project manager of the company.

City leaders are eager to woo Baxter after the announced departure of Northrop Corp., which plans to relocate all of its employees and manufacturing operations to the Los Angeles area by the end of the year.