Relocation of Apartment Site Urged : Housing: Thousand Oaks planners say the 268 units should be built in an industrial area rather than an upscale community.

Under pressure from homeowners in an exclusive gated community, the Thousand Oaks Planning Commission has recommended that the city relocate a planned apartment building from the high-priced private neighborhood to an industrial area nearby.

The commission voted 4 to 1 to recommend City Council approval of Shapell Industries’ proposal to move the apartment complex initially planned for its upscale Rancho Conejo Village subdivision, which now includes about 100 residences.

The commission vote came despite protests from Northrop Corp., which argued that locating the apartment complex directly across from its former plant site would hamper efforts to sell the property. Commissioner Linda Parks cast the dissenting vote.

Shapell wants to build a 268-unit complex that would face Rancho Conejo Boulevard on a 14-acre parcel the developer owns near Lawrence Drive. Under a 1989 agreement with the city, 10% to 15% of the complex’s units would be offered as affordable housing to renters of “moderate” incomes.

Residents, who paid between $250,000 and $410,000 for their houses, strongly support Shapell’s plan, presenting the commission with a petition signed by 71 of the 75 homeowners in the tract. Lianne Majdi, one of more than a dozen homeowners who testified before the Planning Commission on Monday night, said she did not believe it was fair for residents to pay monthly assessment fees of $99 and have to share their private security and streets with apartment renters who would pay nothing.

“It may be a false sense of security,” Majdi said, “but we need to give gated communities a chance. We do live in a new age where crime is so prevalent.”

But Parks said she did not understand how an apartment complex would be more compatible with an industrial area than with a gated community.

“I think this is clearly exclusionary,” Parks said of the Shapell proposal. “I think it isolates affordable housing. And I think it furthers the sense of a loss of community.”

Parks and Commissioner Marilyn Carpenter proposed that the developer include some affordable single-family residences in the new subdivision.

But that suggestion was immediately shot down by Frank Fay, a Shapell official who told the commissioners in no uncertain terms that the developer had no intention of building such houses in Rancho Conejo Village.

“It’s just not agreeable to the community or ourselves,” Fay said, adding that Shapell is “not in the affordable single-family housing business.”

Carpenter later relented, saying that while affordable housing is a laudable goal it was not really in keeping with Shapell’s development.

“The point made by the homeowners is well taken, that houses of significantly lower cost might stand out and not fit in,” she said.

Meanwhile, the developer’s plans to relocate the planned apartment complex drew strong opposition from Northrop officials.

Don Clay, the aerospace company’s facilities manager, complained that moving the planned apartment building directly across the street from its former manufacturing plant would make it difficult to sell its 100-acre property.

Clay said potential buyers would be concerned about restrictions limiting noise, traffic and hours of operation. He said the city would also suffer because it has been trying to attract new businesses to replace Northrop ever since it closed its facilities in 1991.

“It takes away some of our flexibility,” Clay said of his company’s ability to market its property.

But the Planning Commission did not agree, with members saying that future businesses might like the idea of having some housing available nearby. They said such an arrangement could also reduce traffic and pollution.

Shapell, which ultimately plans to build about 1,000 residences in Rancho Conejo Village, initially planned to build a 400-unit apartment building within its development.

The developer, however, decided to relocate the apartment building because it no longer believed it would be appropriate in a gated neighborhood.

The commission Monday also recommended that Shapell build another 95 single-family houses on a nearby 21-acre parcel initially slated for a separate 400-unit apartment complex.

The City Council will make a final decision on the developer’s proposal in coming weeks.

Proposed zone changes A&B; Zoned: Industrial Proposed: 268 apartments CZoned: High-density residential; 400 apartments Proposed: 95 single-family homes Source: City of Thousand Oaks