Thousand Oaks Looks at Limiting Day-Care Centers : Children: Some neighbors complain about noise at home facilities. Proposal would keep operations 200 feet apart.

Debbe Dixon was securing the leash on her shaggy puppy, keeping half an eye on tricycling toddlers Melissa and Shannon, when a high-pitched wail began from somewhere behind the bushes.

With a glance at the baby, who was placidly rocking on a plastic horse, Dixon dashed to the side yard for a little damage control.

Within minutes, 4-year-old Justyn had stopped crying, playmate Brian had apologized for bopping him in the nose, and Brian No. 2 had resumed showing off his Mickey Mouse T-shirt and Ninja Turtle high-tops.

Dixon’s home-based day care was back on track.

But its long-term future remains in doubt.

Responding to sporadic complaints from neighbors about screaming kids and toy-strewn yards, the Thousand Oaks Planning Commission tonight will consider regulating so-called family day-care homes.

Although the city cannot legally ban such businesses, the planning staff has drafted an ordinance that would keep large family day-care facilities--defined as those having 6 to 14 children--at least 200 feet apart.

The Planning Commission will debate the ordinance, take public testimony and make a recommendation. But it will be up to the City Council to formally adopt the new law in a separate meeting, most likely this fall.

While tonight’s vote will only be advisory, Dixon is nervous. Her business could be declared illegal if the ordinance passes--because right next door, well within 200 feet, her neighbor Michelle Cope runs a similar operation.

“I think it stinks,” Dixon said, wiping the nose of a blond 18-month-old in a flower-print dress. “We’ve never had any problems with the neighbors. It doesn’t seem right.”

As she hugged a squirming toddler, Cope added: “It’s not like we can just move our businesses. It’s scary.”

The Planning Commission could recommend a clause exempting existing centers, which would allow both Dixon and Cope to keep their businesses open on East Sidlee Street. Both women rely heavily on income from the day-care centers, which charge about $100 a week and are open from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.

“My kids don’t run around screaming all over the place,” said Cope, who has three junior-high age children of her own. “If there’s a complaint, you have to address it, but to penalize everyone for a problem in one place is not good for the community.”

While one of Cope’s neighbors grumbled about the early-morning traffic--parents dropping off kids before heading to work--others said they didn’t even realize two day-care centers existed side-by-side. “It doesn’t bother me at all,” said Emily Hosoien, who lives across the street.

But in other neighborhoods, some residents aren’t so tolerant.

In an angry letter to the Planning Commission, Klaus Nabielek wrote that his peaceful retirement was shattered when a day-care center opened across the street from his home on Bucksmoore Court in Westlake.

“There is constant screaming, crying, fighting and banging of plastic and metal playthings,” Nabielek wrote. “It starts by 7:30 a.m. and continues without a lunch break until 6:30 and sometimes 7 p.m.”

The proposed ordinance would give city staff leverage to deal with these complaints by requiring all home-based day-care centers with more than six children to obtain special use permits.

Currently, only a few of Thousand Oaks’ roughly 30 large family day-care centers hold city permits, although most are licensed by the state, senior planner Pamela Leopold said.

Most other Ventura County cities require home day-care centers to obtain some form of permit or business license. Camarillo and Ventura provide the permits for free, but other cities charge upwards of $500--including a $1,949 fee in Simi Valley. A state license costs $50.

Under Thousand Oaks’ new law, prospective child-care operators would have to pay $75 and submit a two-page application plus floor plans of their home. The city would then notify property owners within a 200-foot radius.

If neighbors complained, the staff could impose conditions before granting the permit, such as requiring fences around the yard or restricting outdoor play hours, Leopold said.

But Cope, who cares for a half-dozen toddlers in her Lego-filled living room, said she fears neighbors would demand ever-more-stringent controls--to the point of forcing day-care operations to close.

“If homeowners get a notice about a family day-care with 12 kids wanting to open up next door, it will scare them to death,” she said.

Furthermore, Cope predicted that additional restrictions and fees would force day-care owners to raise prices, go out of business or operate illegally. And she can’t understand the city’s rationale for cracking down, given the critical shortage of day care in Ventura County--more than 7,000 additional spaces are needed, according to one estimate.

But the county’s licensing supervisor for day-care centers, Dennis Trenten, said he understands cities’ needs to crack down on unruly facilities. In Thousand Oaks, the City Council asked city staff to draft new regulations because of a few pointed complaints from neighbors.

“The state says it’s necessary to provide day care so productive citizens can work,” Trenten said. “But the city can control noise and density, as long as it doesn’t forbid them to operate.”

Home-based day cares provide roughly half the available child care in Ventura County, Trenten said. He tallies about 15 to 20 complaints a month, some of which come from neighbors.

“You just can’t have 12 children playing without noise,” Trenten said. “For a retired person who wants to listen to classical music on his patio, it can be very irritating to have a large family day-care nearby. One man even blames me for his triple bypass because I licensed a day care next door to him.”