City Considers Changes in Blueprint for Growth

Hoping to change the city’s blueprint for growth to match what has actually occurred, the City Council on Tuesday considered revisions to the conservation and open-space elements of the General Plan.

Thousand Oaks’ original open-space guidelines, drafted in 1972, envisioned that most undeveloped land in the city would be privately held.

The opposite, however, has occurred, and the overwhelming majority of open space within the 60-square-mile Conejo Valley is held by public entities such as the Conejo Open Space Conservation Agency, a joint powers authority created by Thousand Oaks and the Conejo Recreation and Park District.

Now city leaders are faced with a problem: Although about one-third of the land in Thousand Oaks is publicly owned open space, the city has no money set aside to maintain its share of the property.

About 12,900 acres, or more than 34% of Thousand Oaks’ overall planning area, is now classified as natural open space. That number is expected to increase to 15,600 acres, or about 41% of the land in the city, in coming years, according to a city report.

Moreover, while Thousand Oaks’ leaders have designated the acquisition of open space a top priority, they have not put away money to buy land deemed worthy of conservation.

Thousand Oaks residents urged council members to find a way to purchase more open space, saying the city’s own surveys have shown it is a top priority.

“Not giving us what 98% to 99% of us came here for would amount to bankruptcy,” Sharon Noel told council members.

City officials suggested that council members consider using several existing sources of money--such as Thousand Oaks’ bedroom tax on new residential construction, and the transient occupancy tax on hotel visitors--to create a financial plan for obtaining and managing open space.

The bedroom tax is expected to generate $1.4 million over the next 20 to 25 years as Thousand Oaks is built out, and the transient occupancy tax now generates about $1.2 million annually.

City officials also suggested several new sources of money for open-space management and acquisition--including a bond measure and the creation of open-space maintenance districts.

The bond measure would be subject to approval by two-thirds of Thousand Oaks’ voters. The maintenance districts would require property owners in the areas to pay an annual assessment fee to maintain the natural land around them.

The City Council’s revisions will go to the Planning Commission for consideration in the next few weeks, then back to the council for final approval.

Although the General Plan update has no direct effect on the proposal, a large number of opponents of Sport X, a plan to build a $35-million sports complex at Conejo Creek Park, attended the meeting.

They asked council members to consider a requirement that the sale of any public open space would have to be approved by the vote of the people. The council voted 5 to 0 to allow city staff members to put together such a proposal for consideration.

“This is not a matter of negotiations,” city resident Michael Hagopian said. “It’s intolerable to me that private developers could have thought they could get this far.”