Surprise Vote Axes 92-Home Development in Newbury Park : Growth: Builder Aaron Raznick immediately threatens to sue the city. Councilman Frank Schillo sides with project’s foes.

The final tally was a familiar 3 to 2, but the result was decidedly unusual when Thousand Oaks Councilman Frank Schillo sided with the council’s anti-growth faction early Wednesday to block a mid-sized housing development.

The dozen residents still around for the 2:30 a.m. vote seemed too stunned even to applaud when Schillo cast his vote with Mayor Elois Zeanah and Councilwoman Jaime Zukowski to reject a 92-home project in Newbury Park.

Developer Aaron Raznick immediately threatened to sue the city for denying his right to use his property.

“There are no valid reasons for denial of our project,” Raznick said, adding that he has sunk several hundred thousand dollars into the proposed development. “We’re certainly not going to take this lying down. Perhaps the council has opened a whole bag of worms here.”

As proposed, the Raznick & Sons development would have set aside one-third of a 44-acre site just west of Lynn and Reino roads as permanent open space, including both wetland habitat and hilly trails. But during the four-hour public hearing, residents protested that the project was too dense and would not mesh with the existing neighborhood.

Schillo at first tried to appease the neighbors by offering to scratch four homes from the blueprints. But when his colleagues indicated they would not accept such an amendment, Schillo announced he would vote with Zeanah and Zukowski, anti-development stalwarts who usually find themselves in the minority on growth issues.

In urging the council to accept the project, Raznick Assistant Vice President Ellen Michiel said deleting even one home from the tract map would doom the project to insolvency.

But Schillo dismissed that claim and sympathized with the neighbors, who wanted to see fewer--and bigger--lots, especially along a wetland corridor.

“I don’t buy it when anyone says the project won’t pencil out (with fewer homes),” Schillo said. “I’ve heard that too many times.”

Still, Michiel stuck by her figures. Because the site requires substantial grading to lift future homes above the flood plain, plus storm control channels and other expensive infrastructure, she said the developer would need to build at least 92 homes to turn a profit.

To preserve more riparian habitat and please some neighbors, Raznick has already scaled back the project several times.

But in rejecting the project, which the Planning Commission had recommended for approval, some council members suggested that the Raznick parcel might simply be unsuitable for residential development.

“It is not a city’s responsibility to make a project profitable,” Zukowski said. “It is a city’s responsibility to make sure what is developed does not have negative consequences on the neighborhoods.”

The early morning decision--and Raznick’s determination to sue--echoed the tortuous history of a neighboring parcel in Newbury Park, owned by developer Nedjatollah Cohan.

The council last year rejected Cohan’s proposal to build homes and a shopping center on his land, and the developer sued unsuccessfully to reverse that decision. At Tuesday’s marathon meeting, which lasted 10 1/2 hours, Cohan spoke of his sympathy for his fellow developer.

“I feel sorry for him, honest to God,” said Cohan, who has threatened to sue the city again over plans to downzone his property. “It is not fair. Let him enjoy his life.”

But his testimony was no match for the 15 or so residents who implored the council to reject the project and thereby uphold the quality of life that brought them to Newbury Park in the first place.

With at least 2,400 homes already approved for development around the Raznick property, they said Newbury Park would soon become unbearably noisy, polluted and congested, and urged the council to hold the line.

“We are not against building and growth in Newbury Park, but we think building should be done with some regard for the residents who live there,” resident Marlowe Jacobson said.