Public Workshop Set on General Plan Update

In an effort to update the city’s General Plan--parts of which are 24 years old--the Thousand Oaks City Council is scheduled to hold a public workshop Tuesday to discuss revisions to the plan’s open-space, conservation and safety guidelines.

Discussions over the city’s open-space policies, which were adopted in 1972, will be the most controversial, Councilwoman Judy Lazar said.

“It should be routine,” she said. “But it actually deals with open-space issues, which are always sensitive.”

Although few of the document’s basic principles have changed, one major difference includes a stated preference for public rather than private ownership of open space.

The city’s original General Plan envisioned open space that was mainly privately held, according to Mark Towne, an assistant planner for the Conejo Open Space Conservation Agency. But, in practice, the city has shown a clear preference for public ownership, Towne said.

“Over the years, the practice has shifted to predominantly publicly held and managed open space,” he said. “Within the city of Thousand Oaks, 95% of all open space is publicly owned.”

The revised plan will put an end to such discrepancies and clarify the definition of open space, Lazar said.

“It is more clarification and greater definition of what is and is not open space and the steps the city will take to preserve, maintain and acquire it,” Lazar said.

Following the study session, to which the public is invited, the revisions will go to the Planning Commission for a public hearing before returning to the council for a vote.

When a draft proposal was released last month, some members of the city’s business community expressed concern that the revisions would restrict development.

But Mervyn Kopp, a former planning commissioner and one of the proposal’s harshest critics, said he has seen improvements since then.

“The first draft, I thought, ‘Oh, Jesus, this is really scary,’ ” he said. “But the second set was much more toned down.”

“I will take a look at the [current proposal] and then decide whether or not to do anything,” he said last week.

The workshop will be held at 6 p.m. at the Civic Arts Plaza Forum Theatre, 2100 Thousand Oaks Blvd.