Ventu Park Hills Stay in City’s Sphere

A Ventura County planning agency has rejected a bid to keep a 300-acre hillside portion of Ventu Park free of control from neighboring Thousand Oaks, but members of the family that owns most of the area vowed Thursday to continue to fight their battle in court.

The Local Agency Formation Commission in a 4-0 vote Wednesday turned down Harman and Eleanor Rasnow’s request to exclude the unincorporated community known as Upper Ventu Park from Thousand Oaks’ sphere of influence.

“Our property was purchased long before any city existed,” said Tina L. Rasnow, an attorney who is representing her parents in the dispute. “We’re challenging the LAFCO decision in court.”

Severing the area from the city’s sphere of influence would have prevented the county from imposing restrictive development policies that the unincorporated community has fought for years.

“By being in the city’s sphere of influence,” Tina Rasnow said, “it makes the cost of obtaining permits many, many times more costly, and in some instances it will make them impossible to obtain.”

The Rasnows are the largest property owners in an area that includes less than a dozen residents.

They turned up the heat in their long-simmering feud with Thousand Oaks in an attempt to protect the hillside community from what they view as over-regulation.

In March, the Rasnows and other Ventu Park homeowners defied the county Board of Supervisors when it decided to stiffen building regulations for the area to match those in Thousand Oaks.

Those regulations--drafted at the urging of city officials--severely restrict grading and building on steep hillsides in areas such as Ventu Park.

County officials said tougher regulations were needed to preserve pristine hills in unincorporated areas visible to city residents.

Then last month, the Rasnows filed a $10-million lawsuit against the city and the county, alleging that the two government agencies damaged their property values by adopting policies that make their land unbuildable.

Although she is now building a home on the ridge, Rasnow said she and her parents are not planning to construct more houses on 200 acres that they have owned for 29 years.

Upper Ventu Park includes Rasnow Peak, the most prominent and still one of the most scenic ridgelines visible from the floor of the Conejo Valley.

The area was added to the city’s sphere in 1987, about six years after LAFCO originally drew boundaries around what were then nine cities, Thousand Oaks planner John Prescott said.

LAFCO Executive Director Stanley A. Eisner said LAFCO officials believed that the move was logical since the area may someday need municipal services from Thousand Oaks.

Current members of the commission said Thursday that they still believe that Thousand Oaks should be involved in discussions about Upper Ventu Park.