Thousand Oaks Will Keep Fighting Project Despite Court Ruling : Council: Developer, who plans to sue the city for losses caused by delays, wants to build houses and a strip mall on 47 acres in Newbury Park.

Despite a series of blows in state court, Thousand Oaks officials said they will continue to fight a developer’s plan to build houses and a strip mall on 47 acres in Newbury Park.

City Atty. Mark Sellers said Wednesday that developer Nedjatollah Cohan still needs several permits from the city before he can break ground on the project he has fought to build for 17 years.

The state Supreme Court refused Friday to hear an appeal of a lower court ruling that the city broke the law in rejecting Cohan’s project in 1992. And Cohan said Tuesday that he plans to pursue a multimillion-dollar lawsuit to recover losses caused by the delay.

But Sellers said the city could still deny the Cohan project because the 2nd District Court of Appeal ruling chastises the city for procedures used to deny the project, not for the denial itself.

“There are still many questions that remain about whether this project can be approved,” Sellers said. “We still, for instance, have to consider the due process rights of the neighbors who oppose the project.”

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Sellers said that in the two years Cohan has fought the city, the developer’s permit to build on a wetland has expired and he has not obtained a permit to remove oak trees from the property.

“This is a complicated case and we aren’t anywhere near resolving it,” Sellers said.

But with the lower court’s ruling affirmed, Cohan has urged the city to settle the case.

“We want this matter resolved so we can build our project,” said Albert Cohen, Cohan’s son.

Cohan attorney David DiJulio said the developer can prove in court that the delay has cost him millions of dollars.

“I don’t think they realize what they’ve done to him,” DiJulio said. “If this goes to trial, the numbers could be huge.”

Sellers met with DiJulio two weeks ago to discuss a settlement and brought Cohan’s offer to council members during a closed hearing Tuesday night.

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No decision was reached, but an official involved in the discussions said the city has been reluctant to forge an agreement because Cohan refuses to put a reasonable offer on the table.

“Their terms of settling are so out of line that it’s not reasonable,” said the city official, who requested anonymity.

The council concluded the closed hearing by asking Sellers to return to the bargaining table to try for a better offer.

One possible solution is a land swap. Sources close to the settlement talks said Cohan has offered to trade his 47 acres for city-owned land of greater value that is prime for development. Cohan floated that idea as a compromise that would spare the city huge damage costs.

But Albert Cohen said his father will continue to demand permission to build 144 homes and a 117,000-square-foot strip mall.

And he said the city should pay legal and other expenses his father incurred during the two years since the City Council denied the project.

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Cohen said legal fees topped $100,000 and that his father lost the chance for a Ralph’s supermarket to rent space in the commercial development. That agreement would have brought in about $500,000 a year, Cohen said.

DiJulio said delays also have added $4 million to $5 million to the project’s cost for a flood-control basin.

Cohen also said he believes the economic climate has worsened in the last two years, and now it will be more difficult to build a viable project.

But Sellers said he did not believe the damages suffered by Cohan were very extensive.

In fact, he said, the city’s actions may have spared Cohan the financial burden of building a commercial project during a recession.

“There are certainly those around that believe, given the economic climate of the last two years, that the city’s denial of the project may actually have saved the Cohans from bankruptcy,” Sellers said.