Simi Valley Draws the Line Over Road Extension : Transportation: Officials want Sunset Hills Boulevard to run into their city, and they are suing Thousand Oaks to see that it does.

To Thousand Oaks officials, it is nothing more than a line scribbled on a map, a line that never should have been drawn.

But when the city tried to erase the line last year, it got slapped with a lawsuit that could ultimately cost Thousand Oaks $2 million.

Officials in Simi Valley, who filed the lawsuit, said the line represents a long-planned connector road between the two cities. They maintain that the extension of Sunset Hills Boulevard in Thousand Oaks is vital to their city’s traffic and development plans.

After seven months of legal wrangling and closed-door meetings between the two sides, Simi Valley Mayor Greg Stratton said last week that his city will conduct a traffic study to help resolve the dispute.

The city will perform the study after the Simi Valley and Moorpark freeways are joined in October.

Specifically, he said, the study will determine whether the freeway connector significantly reduces traffic on Olsen and Tierra Rejada roads as well as several surface streets in Simi Valley.

If the study shows that traffic is dramatically reduced, “then all is well,” Stratton said, and the city will stop pressing for the Sunset Hills extension.

“But if it shows we really do need another road, then it becomes the prosecution’s Exhibit A.”

Simi Valley is asking for $2 million for road widening and other street improvements that it would have to make if Sunset Hills Boulevard is not extended into Simi Valley.

Meanwhile, officials from both cities continue to argue for and against the two-mile-long connector road.

“We never had plans for a through street going into Simi Valley,” Thousand Oaks Councilman Frank Schillo said. “There was a line drawn on a map, but there were never any studies done on it because we had no intention of building a road.”

Schillo said a connector road would destroy environmentally sensitive hills, while greatly increasing the amount of traffic on residential streets connecting to Sunset Hills Boulevard.

Fewer than 7,000 vehicles a day now travel Sunset Hills Boulevard, but that would increase to more than 21,000 cars by the year 2010 if the road is extended to Simi Valley, according to an environmental impact report commissioned by Thousand Oaks.

“It would dramatically change the character of the neighborhood,” said Larry Weiss, who lives near the boulevard. “It would make it a less desirable place to live. If they put the road through, I think I would move out.”

Resident Lawrence Rennie voiced similar concerns, saying people moved to the area because of the magnificent mountain views.

“It’s definitely going to decrease property values,” he said. “There’s no doubt about it.”

But Stratton said Thousand Oaks residents always knew there were plans to extend the road.

“Why do they think the city built a four-lane road (with a center divider)?” he said.

As Simi Valley officials envision it, Sunset Hills Boulevard would extend past Bard Reservoir and connect with 1st Street near Simi Valley’s Wood Ranch development.

Now, only Olsen Road links the two communities, providing access to Wood Ranch, where 2,000 homes have been built. Another 2,000 residences are planned for the project.

Stratton, a resident of Wood Ranch, said the connector road would ease congestion in his city and provide another much-needed emergency access route. He said Simi Valley has based its development decisions on the assumption that the connector road would be built.

“It was an unfriendly act,” Stratton said of Thousand Oaks’ decision last fall to delete the road from its General Plan map. “Here you have a city with an off-ramp to the freeway, but is not willing to let everybody use the road.”

Bill Golubics, Simi Valley’s senior traffic engineer, said he is certain that the city’s upcoming traffic study will show reduced traffic on Olsen and Tierra Rejada roads because of the opening of the freeway connector.

However, he said, the study will have to take into account development projections in the area for the next 20 years. The city’s population of 104,000 is expected to increase to 137,000 by 2010.

“We have to take the long view,” he said. “When you try to look ahead 20 years, when the community is fully built out, then you’re back to higher volumes.”

But Thousand Oaks officials said that Simi Valley may have to reconsider its future development plans.

“I don’t think Thousand Oaks should provide . . . roads simply to allow Simi Valley to build at its own whim,” said John Clement, Thousand Oaks’ public works director.

Clement noted that Thousand Oaks has revised its own growth projections. He said instead of an estimated population of 200,000 once envisioned for the city, Thousand Oaks is projected to have only 135,000 people when it is fully developed.

“With all of the environmental concerns today, you don’t keep building at levels you thought you could 20 years ago,” he said.

Clement said the city’s planning staff believes that Olsen and Tierra Rejada roads are sufficient to meet the traffic needs of both cities. He acknowledged that it would be beneficial to have another emergency route, but said residents seem to prefer to keep things the way they are.

“The people are willing to take that risk,” he said. “It’s a lifestyle choice.”

Thousand Oaks business leaders also have concerns about the connector road. They said businesses would lose sales tax dollars if it went through because residents in the Sunset Hills area would end up shopping in Simi Valley.

“They’re asking us to pay for the road so we can hang ourselves,” said Steve Rubenstein, president of the Thousand Oaks Chamber of Commerce.

But Simi Valley Councilwoman Judy Mikels called that suggestion “hogwash.” She said many Simi Valley residents travel to Thousand Oaks to shop at The Oaks mall, “and you don’t see us trying to block off Olsen Road.”

As for Simi Valley’s development plans, Mikels said development projections in both cities are always subject to change.

She repeated Stratton’s point that Simi Valley has based its planning decisions during the last 20 years with the connector road in mind. Moreover, she said, Simi Valley is not the only one that will benefit from the road.

“The road will go both ways,” she said, adding that she is not convinced that all Thousand Oaks residents oppose the connector.

“You have people up there that are trying to make a decision that will affect the entire community,” Mikels said. “It might be that people in that community would need it more (than Simi Valley) in the case of an earthquake.”

Simi Valley traffic engineer Golubics, a Thousand Oaks resident who lives near the Olsen Road and Moorpark Freeway interchange, said both cities must consider carefully the future transportation needs of the entire region, not just their individual jurisdictions.

“We should all be looking at what the next generation will be facing” in terms of traffic, Golubics said. “We should be concerned with the legacy we will leave them.”