Gate Debate Lingers at Posh Community : Security: A year after barred entryways were erected, glitches and cost overruns cause some Thousand Oaks residents to question if the measures bring more headaches than they prevent.

When they sealed off their placid cul-de-sacs one year ago, residents of the Braemer Gardens townhomes in Thousand Oaks hoped they were buying security and privacy.

But after months of living behind bars, some homeowners wonder whether the black iron gates may have brought in more trouble than they’ve blocked out.

Mechanical glitches have knocked the electronic gates out of commission at least 10% of the time. Cost overruns boosted the total price tag to about $45,000. And the soft rattle of the gate opening has become a huge headache to those who live nearby.

To top it off, some residents have taken to propping the gates open at peak travel times, wiping out any security value.

“It’s been a total nightmare,” homeowner Lea Sverdloff said. “We’ve had nothing but problems.”

Leaders of the Braemer Gardens homeowner association acknowledge that annoying mechanical problems have cut the gates’ effectiveness. And they readily admit that determined hoodlums could vault over the six-foot-high iron gates--or simply wait for a resident to drive through and follow close behind.

Yet they say the gates have succeeded in turning away criminals, hiking property values and keeping the neighborhood peaceful.

“The gates are a real asset to the community (when) they’re working,” said Robert Hall, treasurer of the homeowner association. “There’s no such thing as building a Berlin Wall, but that’s not the point. The gates are a deterrent.”

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The proposal to install entry gates in a largely open neighborhood sparked fierce debate in public hearings before the Thousand Oaks Planning Commission and City Council in 1993.

Proponents argued that gates would protect the beige and cream townhouses from crooks, vandals and the teen-age rebels who cruised the block with their windows rolled down and their stereos cranked up.

As a bonus, they said, the gates might boost property values by adding a whiff of exclusivity to the neighborhood, which covers four cul-de-sacs between Bowfield and Rockfield streets.

Yet opponents wondered aloud how much more exclusive the neighborhood needed to be.

Braemer Gardens townhomes sell for up to $350,000 apiece. They sit opposite a new community park, where dogs romp across a soccer field and toddlers clamber over a jungle gym. And behind the cluster of homes, a majestic mountain view unfolds.

In this pleasant, posh pocket of Thousand Oaks, some residents questioned the need for gates that cost each homeowner $500 in upfront costs, plus a monthly $5 maintenance fee.

“I’ve never really felt insecure--that’s why I moved here,” resident Lorrette Weber said.

Noting that troublemakers can simply boost themselves over the gates and into the tract, homeowner Bill Sapp called the security measure “real silly,” especially since “there is no crime in our neighborhood to speak of.”

Statistics for crime in the Braemer Gardens neighborhood were not available this week. But crime prevention expert Patti Dreyer, a senior deputy in the Sheriff’s Department, said electronic gates tend to enhance security because “bad guys are more likely to avoid those areas” with tricky exit routes.

Still, she noted: “Gates are like alarms--they’re only as effective as the people make them. If you don’t set your alarm or you disable it because it annoys you, it doesn’t do any good.”

According to some residents, the Braemer Gardens gates are often disabled, propped open or broken.

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When the gates are working, homeowners can enter easily by pushing an electronic device similar to a garage-door opener. But visitors must get out of their cars, climb around to the passenger side and ring their hosts on a roadside intercom. Critics complain that the system is cumbersome and even dangerous, because it forces visitors out of their cars and onto a dimly lit road.

For all their gripes, however, opponents of the gate system have not formally complained to the homeowner association. Now that the $45,000 system is in place, they say, they have little recourse. Plus, an overwhelming majority of homeowners favored the gates in a pre-installation poll.

So the occasional grumbles do not disturb Frank Paolino, past president of the homeowner association and a vocal fan of the gates.

With the gates in place, Paolino said, “you would suppose that the majority of women and some of the guys would feel more secure, even though the gates are not impregnable, and that’s so.”

Overall, Paolino added, “We really like them.”

A new skepticism may emerge in a decade or so, when the Braemer Gardens roads--now private cul-de-sacs--begin to require extensive repairs.

By installing gates, the homeowners took responsibility for sweeping and maintaining their roads. The tract is just 4 years old, so the streets need little work now. But when the roads start to wear down, routine fixes will cost about $5,000 per mile annually, according to Thousand Oaks Public Works Director Don Nelson.

Still, Hall believes the gates are worth the expense.

“The people coming in now are coming because they belong here,” Hall said, “not because they’re just passing through.”