Store, Mall Urge Bigger Signs Near Freeway : Thousand Oaks: The City Council will hear two requests that were denied by the Planning Commission.

Vowing to test the city’s commitment to recession-battered merchants, Thousand Oaks business leaders plan to lobby the City Council to approve two requests for high-visibility signs.

In separate public hearings on Tuesday, the City Council will consider proposals by The Oaks mall and PTS Home & Office Furniture to install larger signs facing the Ventura Freeway to grab the attention of passing motorists.

The Planning Commission has already turned down both requests on the grounds that the businesses are conspicuous enough. Adding bigger, flashier signs would only create visual pollution, a majority of commissioners found.

Despite these rejections, PTS and The Oaks appealed to the City Council. And business leaders say they see indications that the council might prove more sympathetic.

The two councilwomen who have most often voiced concern about upholding Thousand Oaks’ stringent design standards, Elois Zeanah and Jaime Zukowski, recently backed a push to install signs advertising local hotels, restaurants and service stations along the Ventura Freeway to attract more customers.

Zeanah also suggested allowing shopping plazas to replace nondescript monument signs with more prominent directory boards.

Given those positions, some business leaders hinted it would be hypocritical for the two councilwomen to vote against The Oaks and PTS signs. They’re also counting on support from the other three council members, who have backed pro-business measures in the past.

“The City Council has shown itself to be committed to improving the economic conditions of the Conejo Valley, and every case that comes before them is a test of that commitment,” said Jill Lederer, who owns several Domino’s Pizza franchises.

But Councilman Frank Schillo said he was not convinced extra signs translated into more sales. “I don’t think signs make the difference,” he said.

And Zeanah, too, expressed skepticism. She rejected the notion that her past sympathy for freeway signs would prompt her to automatically favor bigger signs for The Oaks and PTS. “They are entirely different issues,” she said.

Because developers of The Oaks agreed to certain sign standards when the mall was built 15 years ago, Zeanah said she was disturbed at the request for changes. “Are we going to start approving a development based on certain conditions and then, once the project is built, modify those conditions?” she asked.

Irritated by that attitude, Conejo Valley Chamber of Commerce President Steve Rubenstein pointed out that landscaping and other construction have obscured the mall since its construction in 1978. Without new signs, The Oaks cannot live up to its promise as a regional mall, he said.

“It’s this kind of treatment that’s keeping businesses from expanding or from moving into town,” Rubenstein added.

But Zukowski contended The Oaks should be able to attract customers without splashing its logo across the building’s exterior. Like Schillo, she suggested a rectangular blue sign on the freeway, similar to the plaques announcing the Auto Mall and Cal Lutheran University.

“They could try something simple, instead of putting glitzy ornamentation on a very tasteful, Mediterranean building,” Zukowski said.

From his vantage point inside the mall, however, restaurant owner Bud Sweeney said he thought the city should let The Oaks do all it could to lure patrons.

“We definitely should do everything we can to garner more customers, which increases revenue, which increases jobs,” Sweeney said. “Without jobs, everything goes down the tubes in this city--and we don’t want that.”