Oaks Mall Gets OK to Spruce Up With Color : Thousand Oaks: The council approves entrance canopies and bigger signs. Critics say design rules will be undermined.

They squabbled a bit about the color scheme--whether the purple resembled eggplant or plum--but after a two-hour hearing, the Thousand Oaks City Council early Wednesday approved a plan to spiff up The Oaks mall’s exterior.

With only slight modifications, the council voted 3 to 2 in favor of the mall’s proposal to deck out its earth-tone entrances with glass-and-metal canopies in forest green and muted purple.

By the same margin, the council allowed The Oaks to install two monument signs to direct shoppers into its sprawling parking lot, as well as bigger on-building signs to boost the major tenants’ visibility from the freeway.

Councilwomen Elois Zeanah and Jaime Zukowski dissented, arguing that the renovations would mar the mall’s classic lines with inappropriately modern embellishments. Adding extra signs along Lynn Road and Hillcrest, they said, would undermine the city’s rigid design guidelines by creating clutter.

“To me, this is a turning point,” Zukowski said. “It just shows me how easily a tremendous amount of planning work can be undone.”

But a half-dozen business owners testified in favor of the renovations--part of a $5-million face-lift designed to update the interior and ease access for disabled patrons.

Presenting statistics showing that The Oaks’ market share has slipped from a high of 22% in 1988 to a low of 14% this year, the mall’s owners said the additional signs and spruced-up look were vital to boost the shopping center’s sagging sales.

And in case that argument didn’t work, local business leaders weighed in with their aesthetic judgment as well. Conejo Valley Chamber of Commerce President Steve Rubenstein even waved around a purple, green and brown tie to prove the color scheme could be tasteful.

“Quite frankly, the exterior of the mall at the moment is boring and beige,” said Felicity Maher, co-owner of the Body Shop in The Oaks. “Twenty years ago, boring and beige may have been all the rage, but now it most certainly is not.”

The double-barreled arguments apparently persuaded two skeptics on the dais--Councilman Frank Schillo and Mayor Judy Lazar--who joined Councilman Alex Fiore to form the approving majority.

Shaking her head in disbelief, Lazar recounted how she had led a grass-roots fight against the mall 19 years ago, when the Hahn Co. first proposed building a regional shopping center in Thousand Oaks.

As a planning commissioner in the late 1980s, she voted against The Oaks’ request for bigger signs.

But on Wednesday, Lazar made the formal motion to overturn the Planning Commission’s unanimous rejection of the mall’s plans.

“We can give lip service to the business community and do nothing but let them flounder,” Lazar said. “We can say they are wicked developers. But these (renovations) do not violate community standards.”

In fact, Lazar even proposed more signs than The Oaks had requested, asking the mall’s developers to designate parking areas with numbers or letters so shopping-bag-laden patrons can more easily find their cars.

In a separate pro-business decision late Tuesday, the council voted to allow PTS Home & Office Furniture to increase the lettering size on its Conejo Ridge Avenue store to 36 inches, up from 24 inches. Again, Zeanah and Zukowski dissented.

“I don’t believe it’s appropriate to use the recession to undermine our good planning standards,” Zeanah said.

Almost all the dozen speakers disagreed, however. Resident Skip Padberg summed up their point of view, telling the council, “We’re certainly not going to add any blight to our city by adding a few extra inches to a sign.”