COUNTYWIDE : 2nd-Story Addition to Condo Rejected

The Thousand Oaks Planning Commission has barred a Westlake Village townhouse owner from building a second-story addition that would have blocked sunlight to an adjoining townhouse.

The commission voted 4 to 0 to overturn a decision by the city’s Planning Department staff that would have allowed Victor and Tess Pollard to add 351 square feet to the second floor of their townhouse in the 2400 block of South Windward Circle. Commissioner Forrest Frields was absent.

The commissioners were responding to an appeal by Doris Goetz, president of the local homeowner association, and her husband, Donald. Their home adjoins the Pollards’.

“It would block all the light that the adjacent property owner would have,” Commissioner Andrew Fox said of the proposed second-floor addition. “These are townhomes. They’re not designed to be added onto.”

However, the commission allowed the Pollards to go ahead with a 381-square-foot addition to their first floor.

The decision Monday was the second time in the last five months that commissioners have heard from homeowners on Windward Circle, one of the fingerlike peninsulas on Westlake Lake. All of the 26 townhouses on the cul-de-sac have back yards facing the lake.

In September, commissioners ordered Charles and Pepper Dabby, who also live in the 2400 block of South Windward Circle, to take down a satellite dish disguised as a patio umbrella. Neighbors of the Dabbys had complained that the antenna interfered with lake views.