Dos Vientos Opposition Attacks Study : Thousand Oaks: Foes say an environmental report is inadequate. They challenge the council’s right to approve 2,350 homes in backcountry.

Trying to force the Thousand Oaks City Council to scale back the huge Dos Vientos development in Newbury Park, critics of the project have filed a 250-page report criticizing the environmental impact study as inadequate.

Detailed comments by the Sierra Club and a grass-roots citizens group called Residents to Preserve Newbury Park attacked the environmental impact report and challenged the council’s right to approve 2,350 homes on a mountainous backcountry tract.

The Sierra Club accused the city of “intentionally and illegally” limiting the scope of environmental review and restricting the range of possible mitigation measures.

In response, the president of the environmental consulting firm that prepared the report said he believed the city has been “very steady in its desire to disclose any and all impacts” associated with the Dos Vientos project.

“We have experienced no pressure at all to come up with predetermined conclusions,” said Joseph Johns, president of Envicom Corp. He added that his own research has convinced him that “the density should be reduced.”

But City Atty. Mark Sellers said Thousand Oaks could not legally back out of a development agreement guaranteeing 2,000 market-rate homes plus 350 for low-income residents.

“There’s got to be finality in life,” he said. “Otherwise, why would a developer ever sign an agreement?” As for reducing the number of homes, Sellers added: “It’s not going to happen.”

That flat declaration did not sit well with Mayor Elois Zeanah, who kicked off her political career fighting Dos Vientos. Despite the binding development agreement, she said she could not believe the council’s hands are tied.

“The city cannot give away its absolute right to protect its residents,” Zeanah said. “We can interpret documents to give our residents the fullest extent of protection. We’re supposed to provide for the health, safety and welfare of our residents--that’s why we’re in business.”

And in fact, the development agreement contains a clause noting that the city can “govern” the Dos Vientos ranch “to the extent reasonably required in order to prevent a condition dangerous to the health and safety of residents of the project or adjoining property.”

Both the Sierra Club and the grass-roots group argued in their comments that building all 2,350 homes would seriously harm present and future residents. To bolster their case, they seized on conclusions from the environmental impact report that they declared inadequate.

Although the report was not comprehensive enough, the information it did contain proved that at least part of the Dos Vientos ranch “is not suitable for residential development,” said Cassandra Auerbach, legal chairwoman for the Sierra Club’s Conejo Valley branch.

For example, the report noted that a potentially active earthquake fault lies under the Dos Vientos ranch just north of Potrero Road. In another section, the report concluded that some Dos Vientos residents would be exposed to unsafe levels of electromagnetic radiation from nearby power lines.

The report’s authors insisted homes could safely be built around the fault. And they suggested deleting the 22 homes closest to the power line to minimize radiation exposure. But those proposals did not satisfy the two groups critiquing the report.

“We’re not talking about ‘We don’t like the project’ or ‘It’s not pretty.’ We’re talking, it’s dangerous,” said Michelle Koetke, a leader of Residents to Preserve Newbury Park. “The council needs to know they are going to be held morally responsible for condoning a dangerous project.”

Because the development agreement locked the city into 2,350 homes, consultants drafting the environmental analysis could not consider the “no project” option, usually standard in such reports. Leaving the ranch undeveloped, or changing the zoning to low-density, would be “improper and unconstitutional,” they concluded.

But the Sierra Club’s Auerbach disagreed.

“Now we know people’s houses are going to crumble and they’re going to get sick (from radiation), but we’re still going to build there anyway? That’s ludicrous,” she said. “There’s evidence of real geologic instability there.”

The Thousand Oaks City Council does have an opportunity to delete 136 homes from the Dos Vientos project, because developer Courtly Homes defaulted on an $806,000 payment due in mid-June. But the homes surrounding the power line and the earthquake fault belong to a different developer, Operating Engineers, which has met all its obligations under the contract.

The city could not revoke approval for those homes without violating the development agreement, signed in July, 1990, by then-Mayor Alex Fiore.

Before approving the development agreement, the council reviewed an environmental impact report on Dos Vientos. But after the Sierra Club challenged that report as inadequate, the city commissioned a new analysis.

The second environmental impact report--focusing on a particular tract of 220 homes--was released in late August, and drew last week’s scathing critiques from the Sierra Club and Residents to Preserve Newbury Park. The public comment period officially ends Monday.

“We wanted an adequate and full disclosure and we haven’t gotten that yet,” Auerbach said. “The city has got to stop this laissez-faire attitude of thinking they can get away with a shoddy job.”

She contended that the report does not take into account wetlands on Dos Vientos ranch and does not consider enough alternatives to building 2,350 homes there. In addition, she said the city failed to send a copy of the report for review to the Army Corps of Engineers, which has jurisdiction over a stream on the property.

But Greg Smith, the city planner who handles Dos Vientos, said he had received comments from most state and federal agencies with jurisdiction over the project. Those comments mainly dealt with small issues, he said--in marked contrast to the Sierra Club critique, which blasted the entire report.

“It seems clear from the tone of the (Sierra Club) comments that there’s a basic distrust of the city,” Smith said. “That’s unfortunate because we have tried all along for full disclosure.”

Once all public comments are in, city staff will analyze them and prepare a detailed response. Smith could not estimate how long that might take.

Operating Engineers has requested a public hearing on its subdivision map for the tract, which would outline the layout of homes as well as the elevations and site plans. But the hearing cannot take place until after the give-and-take on the environmental impact report has finished, Sellers said.

With clear frustration, the city attorney added: “This project is being EIR’ed to death.”