Fence Coming Down, City Warns Tycoon

For a man almost no one has heard from in months and few seem to know anything about, reclusive millionaire Charles E. Probst sure is involved in a lot of controversy these days.

Culminating a long-standing dispute that incensed residents in the city’s posh North Ranch neighborhood, the Thousand Oaks city attorney’s office said Tuesday that Probst ignored a Monday deadline to remove a wrought-iron fence surrounding his estate--and the city will now take it down for him.

The fracas over the fence--which violates city codes because it is not set back 35 feet from Westlake Boulevard--comes a week after the fund-raising arm of the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza filed a lawsuit against Probst for failing to deliver on a $2-million pledge to financially support the $64-million center’s endowment fund.

“If we don’t use city workers we’ll have to go out to a public bid, and that could take some time,” Deputy City Atty. Jim Friedl said. “But the process has begun. The fence is coming down one way or another.”

Probst, 52, initially erected the sturdy 8-foot fence in November 1994 to surround his property during the completion of a massive $2-million landscaping project. Probst had said then through his attorney that the customary chain-link fence used to shield construction sites was too unseemly for North Ranch.

But Friedl said Probst has abandoned his ambitious landscaping plans, and the so-called temporary fence has exceeded its welcome.

“If you have more money than you know what to do with, you build a temporary fence like that, I suppose,” Friedl said. “Either that or you don’t intend it to be temporary.”

The city will use $9,000 Probst has deposited to take down an approximately 300-foot section of the fence near Westlake Boulevard, and will file a lawsuit if necessary to get Probst to finish the landscaping on his estate, Friedl said.

Probst did not return phone calls Tuesday and his attorney, Paul Stansen, offered no comment.

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In a much-criticized decision, the City Council voted 3 to 2 in October 1994 to overturn a Planning Commission decision and approve Probst’s unusual landscaping project. Probst sought to remove all natural vegetation on the hillside next to his $8-million mansion, plant about 900 trees, shrubs, and build an underground bunker to house landscaping tools.

The council vote came weeks after Probst made his $2-million pledge to the nonprofit Alliance for the Arts, and critics charged that Probst was given preferential treatment because of his large contribution.

The dispute over Probst’s fence began a month later when Cathy Schutz, a member of the Westlake North Property Owners Assn., alerted the City Council that Probst was building a wrought-iron fence markedly close to Westlake Boulevard--clearly a violation of city codes.

City Atty. Mark Sellers and Probst’s lawyers then negotiated a special agreement: Probst was allowed to keep the fence up until last July, at which time he was required to move it deeper onto his property. At Sellers’ request, Probst gave the city a $9,000 check as security to guarantee the fence’s removal. And Probst granted the city permission to enter his property if the fence did not come down by July 31.

The deadline passed, and the fence remained. But instead of enforcing the agreement, Sellers decided to give Probst an extension until Jan. 15.

Friedl said he has written a letter to Probst informing him that unless the fence is removed by Jan. 22, the city will enter his property and remove the portion in dispute. Moreover, Friedl said, he will contact Probst’s attorney to let him know the millionaire may face a lawsuit if he fails to complete his landscaping project.

“He has not done everything he was supposed to,” Friedl said. “He put in a lot of trees, but he did not put in the shrubs he said he would, and the underground bunker was never built, as far as we can tell.”

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Councilwoman Jaime Zukowski said she believes the entire dispute over Probst’s fence could have been prevented had city officials specified the type of fence Probst was allowed to build.

Zukowski said the city attorney’s initial decision to let Probst keep the fence up awhile, and his later decision to grant Probst an extension, have left the city open to accusations of favoritism.

“When [code enforcement] isn’t uniformly dealt with, it can give a perception of selective enforcement,” Zukowski said. “It causes a lack of faith in the process. That was clearly the case here, where homeowners saw this clear violation and the extensions that this person was given.”

Nonsense, Mayor Andy Fox counters. The city was treating Probst fairly by giving him a chance to remove the fence, he said.

“We don’t give anybody preferential treatment,” Fox said. “Extensions are granted all the time by the city in these situations. My understanding is that we treated the fence issue the same as other violations in the past.”

Moreover, Fox said it would be pointless to dwell on what should have been done. The important thing now is to take the fence down and move on, he said.

“We have the finances [from Probst] and the authority to do this ourselves,” Fox said. “It’s always really unfortunate when things like this happen. If we have to take care of the fence, that’s what we’ll do.”