Strict Ridgeline Rules May Be On Way Out

Nothing, except perhaps the oak tree, is quite so treasured in this city as its ridgelines.

So treasured, in fact, that the city decided several years ago to make it very, very difficult to build anything on the hillsides ringing Thousand Oaks.

But now, concerned that the protective ordinance has gone too far, city leaders have agreed to give homeowners more leeway to build on the steep ridges.

On Monday, the Planning Commission agreed to add a “relief valve” clause to the city’s Protected Ridgeline Overlay Zone ordinance, originally approved in 1991. The changes, which require City Council approval to take effect, would grant those who own hillside property a means to build larger structures than now allowed.

“It will give them relief,” commission Chairman Forrest Frields said. The present ordinance, he said, provides owners too little latitude. “I think it was a little too stringent.”

Still, planning commissioners and others said the city needs the ridgeline zone to preserve local hillsides.

“It has been a very useful tool,” said Rorie Skei, chairwoman of the Conejo Open Space Conservation Agency. “And I think there’s no question that . . . the ridgelines are such an important feature of the city that most residents would like to see them unsullied.”

In its brief life, the ordinance limiting development on steep ridges has made many enemies.

One couple, unemployed and in the midst of a divorce, lost their property to foreclosure after a prospective buyer learned that the ordinance might apply to their land and backed out of the deal.

Another couple, who had hoped to build their dream home on their ridgeline property, had to sell the land to the city because, they said, the ordinance made building there too difficult.

And Cal Lutheran University administrators say that if the city goes ahead with plans to apply the ordinance to about 20 acres of university land, they will no longer be able to use it as collateral when arranging loans.

Although the present law does not prohibit development on the ridgelines, it does try to ensure that hillside buildings will be relatively small and difficult to see. Homes within the zone may be no larger than 2,000 square feet, including a garage. The buildings must be set back from ridge crests and cannot exceed 17 feet in height.

The proposed changes would allow the commission to grant exemptions to some of those rules on a case-by-case basis. Property owners seeking exemptions would have to demonstrate that their projects did not violate the ridgeline overlay zone’s intent and would not significantly affect views of the ridges. And buildings would still need to meet the height restrictions.

The changes, however, are unlikely to quiet critics of the ordinance. Cal Lutheran administrators will ask the City Council not to include some of their Mountclef Ridge property within the zone despite the “relief valve,” said Dennis Gillette, the university’s vice president for administrative services.

The university, he said, uses its land for collateral when securing long-term loans, and the ridgeline restrictions, if imposed, could seriously undercut the property’s value.

“It would, in effect, render that land useless,” he said.

Sister Lisa Megaffin, principal of La Reina High School, takes a similarly dim view of city efforts to apply the zone to some of her school’s land. The religious order that owns the property, she said, already acts as a responsible steward, without city interference.

“We just don’t want future generations to be stuck with restrictions that aren’t necessary,” she said.

Hendon Harris, president of Sentry Home Loans in Thousand Oaks, said he has experienced firsthand the damage that the ridgeline zone can cause. The ordinance, he said, blocked the planned sale last year of a property on Helga Court.

The prospective buyer backed out of the deal after learning that the City Council was considering applying the zone to the property. The owners, a couple who had recently lost their jobs and were divorcing, lost the property to foreclosure.

Although the council eventually exempted the Helga Court property from the ridgeline zone, Harris blames the zoning ordinance for preventing the sale.

“It absolutely killed the deal,” Harris said.

Another couple, James and Darlean Kallas, sold their property to the city after the ridgeline ordinance and other factors made it virtually impossible to build there. The couple had purchased the 4.6-acre parcel more than 30 years ago, hoping to make it their home.