Planners OK Aspects of Sprawling Business Park : Development: Camarillo officials withhold approval of parking structure and helipad. Health-care firm may appeal decision.

Despite the Camarillo Planning Commission’s approval of most of their project, the developers of a proposed 61-acre business complex said they may appeal the decision in order to secure a parking structure and a helipad.

After a five-hour meeting that ended early Wednesday morning, the commissioners voted unanimously to approve the 1.44-million-square-foot WellPoint Health Networks business campus in east Camarillo. Commissioner Harriet Hammond was absent.

Once completed, the sprawling facility will represent the largest single-owner commercial business complex in Camarillo, city officials said.

While uniformly praising the proposed $180-million development, the commissioners chose to withhold their approval for a 60-foot-high parking structure and a helipad.

“We are considering all of our options, and one of those is to appeal,” said Larry Bryant, a company spokesman. “We view the Planning Commission’s decision as essentially a conditional approval. Obviously, we would have liked to have seen the entire project approved.”

The campus, in the Mission Oaks Business Park near the intersection of Adolfo Road and the Ventura Freeway, would be built in phases over eight years. WellPoint is a for-profit subsidiary of health-care giant Blue Cross.

Under city ordinance, WellPoint officials have 10 days to appeal the Planning Commission’s decision, said Matthew Boden, director of planning and community development.

If an appeal is filed, Boden said, the Camarillo City Council will have to consider the entire project, most likely at its June 28 meeting.

At the crux of the commissioners’ concerns was whether the 60-foot parking structure should be built adjacent to Supra Alloys, an exotic-minerals processing firm that was established on Cortez Circle in 1990, long before WellPoint purchased the surrounding parcels.

WellPoint’s architectural plans call for the construction of a multistory employee commons building and two parking structures. Once built, the structures will surround the small firm on three sides.

“I’m very impressed with the project. It is going to make a nice addition to the city,” said Planning Commissioner William Liebmann. “But because of the design of the parking structures, the people at Supra Alloys are going to feel as if they are in a canyon. I think they have a legitimate concern.”

Seeking to resolve the problem, city planning staff before the meeting suggested moving the parking structure, making it smaller or installing trees and shrubs to screen it from the Supra Alloys building.

Johm Siemon, a WellPoint vice president, said the company needs the parking spaces in the structure to meet city parking regulations.

“We are in favor of the third option,” Siemon said Tuesday night. “We think we can install some attractive yet dense landscaping that would answer everyone’s concerns.”

Stanley E. Cohen, an attorney representing Supra Alloys owner George Esseff, said his client would prefer that the building be moved to another location on the parcel. He said Supra Alloys is satisfied with the commission’s decision.

“We asked that the commission give my client some consideration for his situation and they did,” Cohen said. “We will continue to monitor the situation. If [WellPoint] does decide to appeal, we will be there with bells on.”

The planning panel, following Liebmann’s lead, voted to approve the overall project while withholding final approval for the parking structure until the start of the project’s fourth and final phase, expected about 2003.

Citing concerns about noise and safety, the commission also balked at approving an 80-foot-square helipad, saying it would be too close to a proposed child-care facility and a nearby housing tract.

As a possible alternative, the commission suggested moving the helipad to a parking lot in the southwest corner of the campus.

If WellPoint officials decline to appeal, construction on the project’s first phase, measuring 700,000 square feet, could start in the early spring of 1997.

While the first phase would be built to accommodate as many as 3,500 employees, only about 1,300 employees from the company’s leased Newbury Park and Thousand Oaks facilities would initially be transferred to the new site.

Ultimately, the project will house as many as 7,200 employees. Plans call for the construction of 14 buildings, ranging in height from three to 10 stories, and parking spaces for 5,600 vehicles.

A company health club, cafeteria and child-care facility will also be added to the amenities available to employees.

According to WellPoint officials, the new complex will be used as the company’s central facility for the sales and management of health insurance policies sold to individuals, senior citizens and small companies.