OAK PARK : Builders to Be Asked to Stop Posting Signs

Ventura County officials are stepping in to help resolve a six-month silent war between the Oak Park Municipal Advisory Council and area developers over roadside signs, a Public Works Department spokesman said Wednesday.

County officials plan to ask developers to stop posting signs along Kanan Road, Deputy Director of Public Works Al Knuth said.

If the developers don’t comply, the county may begin charging them for county workers to remove the signs, he said.

Every weekend for about six months, council member Ron Stark said he has been tearing down the signs himself. Developers put up the cardboard signs, usually attached to wooden stakes or on light posts, to advertise residential developments in the area.

“We spend millions and millions of dollars to landscape Kanan Road,” Stark said. “Why have it degraded by these signs?”

The signs are common throughout the county.

But when development was approved in Oak Park, the county banned the signs along Kanan Road, Stark and county officials said.

Oak Park’s development plan allows developers only to put up ladder signs--wooden signs on which one development name appears on top of another.

The temporary signs have appeared occasionally over the years.

But the problem became acute about six months ago when the signs started appearing 10 feet apart, Stark said, noting that he removes about 20 signs every weekend.

A representative of Regis Homes acknowledged that the company’s signs for Shadow Ridge in Oak Park are being torn down. But he would not comment further. Two other Oak Park developers could not be reached for comment.

The state’s “streets and highways code says that we can have people remove certain signs that are placed in our road right of way,” Knuth said. County officials don’t generally exercise this right unless the signs are a traffic hazard, he said.