Thousand Oaks Urged to Build Golf Course

Usually poker-faced during weekly meetings, Thousand Oaks Councilman Alex Fiore broke into an ear-to-ear grin when half a dozen fellow golfers took the microphone to urge the council to push forward with tentative plans for an 18-hole golf course in Hill Canyon.

Environmentalists also weighed in during the Tuesday night meeting, voicing concerns that laying out fairways would destroy parts of Hill Canyon, a 300-acre swath of city and county land on the western fringes of Thousand Oaks, near Wildwood Park and other open space.

By and large, however, the 35 golfers, hikers, bikers and equestrians who filled council chambers agreed that the city urgently needs new recreational facilities, especially a golf course.

Although very preliminary, the study session marked the first opportunity for public comment on appropriate uses for Hill Canyon, a site that Thousand Oaks council members have considered developing for nearly two decades. Aside from a golf course, the city may construct horse stables and a clubhouse and upgrade existing trails.

But the first tee time on the envisioned course remains several years distant, as the city must first hire consultants, conduct feasibility studies, hold public hearings and come up with an estimated $15 million to $20 million, Fiore said.

Preliminary studies indicated that playing fees on a Hill Canyon course could generate $3.6 million in revenue a year--more than enough to cover an anticipated $1.5-million operating budget, said Donald Nelson, the city’s director of utilities.

Concerned about traffic pollution and pesticide damage to 32 acres of sensitive wetlands, environmentalists pleaded with the City Council to order careful studies before proceeding.

“We have to take a look at what we’re doing to the remaining open space here by essentially privatizing it for those who can pay,” resident Paul Herzog said. “We need to think about what kind of legacy we’re leaving our children.”

But Fiore argued that the golf course, which would attract an evenly spaced flow of traffic as players arrived throughout the day, would create minimal traffic--one car every 2.5 minutes, based on a projected use of 65,000 rounds a year.

Fellow boosters also suggested that a new course would relieve the environmental stress on Thousand Oaks’ Los Robles golf course, which squeezes in 120,000 rounds annually and still turns away a dozen would-be players an hour.

A local Chumash Indian, Richard Angulo, gave an unexpected thumbs up to the proposal to develop Hill Canyon. Covering American Indian burial grounds in the area with carefully tended fairways would protect the grounds from passersby, who have been removing bones and trashing archeological sites, he said.

Despite the generally positive reception from residents attending the study session, council members do not expect the golf course to win easy approval. A lively exchange midway through the 90-minute study session highlighted the potential for snags.

In a friendly tussle with Newbury Park resident Ross Blasman, who argued that a golf course in Hill Canyon would mar the beauty of surrounding open space, Fiore said he did not understand how anyone could look askance at neat stretches of fairways and bunkers.

“You’ve got to agree that a golf course looks nice,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief when Blasman admitted that he preferred wild scrub to manicured greens.

“I think you see the difficulty that will face us,” Lazar responded. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”