Owner Not Budging on Sale of Property Near City Arts Plaza : Thousand Oaks: Robert Heggen is seeking $1.4 million for the house near the entrance of the project. The city has offered $420,000.

If Thousand Oaks can spend $150,000 for a copper curtain to decorate a wall of its Civic Arts Plaza, then Robert Heggen figures it can afford to pay him what he wants for his half-acre property that sits at the main entrance to the complex.

Heggen is asking $1.4 million for his two-story house and adjoining equipment storage yard at the corner of Oakwood Drive and Thousand Oaks Boulevard, where the massive government and cultural center is being built. The city has offered $420,000.

Although Heggen said he remains open to negotiation, he is not the least bit impressed with the city’s offer and will not accept it.

He argues that his property, where he operates a grading and equipment-rental business, is more important to the overall look of the $68-million Civic Arts Plaza than spending money to cover up a blank wall with a copper curtain.

“Which is going to look worse? A flat white wall that looks like a drive-in movie screen?” he said. “Or driving up to the Civic Arts Plaza and looking down on a construction yard?”

But city officials said that Heggen’s demands are unrealistic and that the city is sticking by its offer, based on the appraised value of the land.

“We have to pay fair market value,” City Atty. Mark Sellers said. “We cannot make a gift of public funds.”

At a meeting Tuesday night, the City Council decided to give Heggen a week to accept the city’s purchase price before finalizing plans for the entrance to the Civic Arts Plaza.

The original project design did not include the use of the Heggen property, but officials said that traffic would flow more smoothly if the Heggen parcel was acquired because it would allow Oakwood Drive to be widened.

Also, they said the city would not have to build a large and expensive retaining wall around Heggen’s land, which is about 120 feet from the Civic Arts Plaza building.

Still, officials said they will not be held hostage by Heggen’s demands.

“If he’s not willing to move, we can go in another direction,” Mayor Judy Lazar said before the meeting. “We always knew we could do it without his property.”

Councilman Frank Schillo agreed, adding the city is at a critical point in the construction schedule of the Civic Arts Plaza and must decide quickly on the final street design.

The councilman said he is not worried that Heggen’s junk- and equipment-strewn property will be an eyesore because it will be partly surrounded by a retaining wall.

“I can live with it,” Schillo said. “I mean, is the visual impact going to be worse than spending another $1 million? The answer to that is no.”

Heggen said he believes the city is simply trying to pressure him into accepting its offer. He said he is in the process of conducting his own appraisal and will need more than a week to work out an agreement.

He said he is not being unreasonable, pointing out that the city paid $2.7 million for an acre of property next door. He figures his property is worth about half that.

“I was raised there and my mother died there,” Heggen told the council Tuesday night. “I feel it is worth more than $20 a square foot.”

Sellers said the city paid more for the adjoining land because it had several commercial businesses operating on it. The land was actually divided into two half-acre parcels, with the city paying $1.3 million for one, and $1.4 million for the other.

“The owners had businesses under lease that were generating income,” and the city was obligated to reimburse them for some of the money lost from those leases, Sellers said. In contrast, Heggen does not have any businesses paying rent, he said.

Sellers said the City Council could seize Heggen’s property through eminent domain, but has not expressed any interest in setting in motion the time-consuming legal process to acquire property from a reluctant seller. He said the council has been hesitant to take such action because of community opposition.

“I don’t think any government entity wants to utilize that power, only as a last resort,” he said, adding that condemnation would require the approval of four of the five City Council members.

Still, Sellers said it is an option that the council could consider.

Heggen said his family has operated an equipment rental business on the property for 30 years. “I can’t go out and get another construction site for what they’re offering me,” he said.

Rather than accepting the city’s offer, Heggen said he would rather develop another commercial business on the property, possibly a restaurant.

“There’s been a couple of restaurant chains that have already called me about it,” he said, declining to name the interested parties.

He said the property is very attractive to commercial businesses because it is so close to the Civic Arts Center. This is another reason he believes the city should up its offer.

Ed Johnduff, project manager of the Civic Arts Plaza, said that Heggen’s 60-by-330-foot parcel is so narrow that it would be difficult to develop any new business on the property because of the city’s strict design standards. He said given the city’s setback restrictions, a business would be limited to building a structure no more than 30 feet wide.

“I’m not saying we’re going to be difficult with him,” Johnduff said. “We’re just a difficult city to develop in.”

Heggen, who resides in Agoura, said his two daughters and son-in-law now live in the house on the property. He said his children have a strong attachment to the house, which the family built in the mid-1940s, and do not want him to sell it.

The city initially offered $379,000 to Mildred Heggen, Robert Heggen’s mother, in 1990. But she refused to sell the land, and after the public rallied behind her the city agreed not to try and take over the land while she was still alive.

She died last October.

Robert Heggen said if the city purchases his property to widen Oakwood Drive, he wants to be the one to tear down the house.

“I helped build it,” he said. “It would be hard for me to watch somebody else do it.”