Adventist Officials Scale Back Proposed Project : Thousand Oaks: The new plan calls for preservation of more wildlife habitat and elimination of half of the housing units. City planners welcome the changes.

Hoping to reduce environmental damage and smooth relations with the city, builders of the Seventh-day Adventist development in Thousand Oaks announced plans Thursday to scale back a major portion of their $100-million project.

The changes--including preservation of more wildlife habitat and elimination of half of the proposed housing--will probably delay a City Council vote on the project until after a fifth council member is chosen in a special June election.

Developers have repeatedly said they should not be forced to present their plans to a four-member council, in part because they fear that the council’s 2-2 political split will spell defeat for their massive project.

Church attorney Charles Cohen said Thursday that Adventist officials hope the changes will address Planning Commission concerns raised last month about extensive grading proposed for undeveloped land north of the Ventura Freeway at Wendy Drive.

“The church leaders have been willing to listen to the comments regarding grading on the north campus and now they are proposing to make some changes,” Cohen said. “And they do this even though it’s likely to cost them half of the housing units that they proposed initially.”

Church developers had proposed construction of 82 rental units in the expansive, undeveloped brushland where a school will also be built. Now, Cohen said the church has settled on about 44 units.

Planning commissioners said they welcomed the change, especially because most agreed the project as initially planned stretched city guidelines for development.

“I think this kind of change has been in the cards a long time,” commission Chairman Irving Wasserman said.

“Everybody who has been involved in putting this development through the process understands that there are tremendous problems in the size and scope of the project in the undeveloped portion of the site,” he said.

Initial plans for the development included construction on two portions of a 179-acre parcel. Construction of a giant shopping center was proposed for land already partly developed for church activities.

A religious school campus and rental units were slated for a 74-acre swath of untouched grassland that is home to two endangered plant species.

The Planning Commission expressed its most serious reservations about the developer’s request to cut deep into steep hillsides that border the undeveloped acreage.

But those who designed the massive project said the grading actually would help ensure that the buildings would blend into the landscape.

“The irony here is that we will go back and redesign this project and the average person will find it more intrusive than they did before,” said Francisco Behr, the Thousand Oaks architect who is designing the project.

“Now we have to accommodate the Planning Commission because they don’t like the way this looks on paper,” he said. “What they are ignoring is how it would look once it’s built.”

Cohen said the redesign will force delays that could push a City Council vote on the project into July. He said the church will not back a candidate in the June special election.

He maintained that the delay was not an attempt to avoid the four-member council, but some city leaders were skeptical.

“The odds are vastly increased for them with a fifth person,” Wasserman said. “If the council is split 2-2, their project is almost certainly dead.”

Councilwoman Elois Zeanah said she objected to the delays because Adventist representatives initially had asked the city to speed up review of their project.

“They had come to the City Council making a very strong argument for expedited processing,” Zeanah said. “The result was that other applicants who were ahead of them in line were pushed aside.”

Ultimately, Zeanah said, if Adventist leaders want approval they will have to bring it closer to city guidelines.

And Cohen said that is precisely what church officials plan to do.

“They are doing everything they can to be cooperative in this,” Cohen said. “We hope the city will be interested in doing the same.”