Slow-Growth Proponents Say They May Be Out-Foxed

One week after the matter appeared settled, the bitter dispute over how best to protect open space in this city has been revisited by Mayor Andy Fox’s rival growth-control measure.

Critics of Fox’s measure--most notably Planning Commissioner Linda Parks--maintain that it will supersede an earlier open-space initiative Parks spearheaded and allow public parkland to be developed as long as it is deemed “surplus.”

Fox and City Atty. Mark Sellers said those charges are completely false, countering that the Parks initiative would not be at all affected by the Fox measure.

Last week, council members approved the Parks initiative as an ordinance, instead of placing the measure on the November ballot. The ordinance prevents land designated as a golf course, park or open space in the city’s General Plan from being developed for another purpose without voter approval.

On Tuesday, the City Council is set to consider placing Fox’s measure before voters in November. The wide-ranging Fox measure would prevent the City Council from amending Thousand Oaks’ General Plan to increase the density of a commercial or residential project without voter approval.

For example, if a development company wanted to build apartments in an area the General Plan sets aside for single-family homes, it would need voter support as well as City Council approval to proceed.

Like the Parks ordinance, Fox’s measure would also require a majority vote of the electorate to increase the intensity of development on any land the General Plan classifies as parks, golf course or open space.

But unlike the Parks ordinance, it contains an exception clause for publicly owned land: The City Council could still amend the General Plan for such property if the government agency that owns the land declared it to be “no longer needed for a public purpose.”

Before the Parks initiative became an ordinance last week, the council could make those types of amendments to the General Plan for both public and private land.

Parks said she believes the exemption in Fox’s measure would all but nullify the ordinance she spawned and allow the very thing she was rallying against--development of public open space. She and her supporters are upset, charging foul play.

“I’m really disappointed,” Parks said. “I feel tricked. They approved my initiative as an ordinance, knowing full well that they were going to turn around and do this. This completely undermines all the work I did, and all the public support I received from people wanting to save our open space.”

Sellers said Parks appears to have greatly misunderstood the Fox measure and its exception clause. Although the exemption states that the General Plan could be amended without voter approval when surplus public land was at stake, Sellers said it does not apply to surplus open space.

“They’re fighting at windmills here,” Sellers said of Parks and her supporters. “It’s a straw argument. This doesn’t circumvent the Parks ordinance, and [the exemption] doesn’t apply to open space.”

For example, Sellers said that if a school district wanted to sell an unused school to a developer to build homes, the Fox measure would allow the council to grant a General Plan amendment. However, he added, if the district wanted to change the General Plan designation of some open space to sell it to a developer, the Parks ordinance--and the Fox measure--would require that the project to be put before the voters.

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Moreover, Fox said that Parks’ ordinance does not place the restrictions on the Conejo Recreation and Park District, or the Conejo Valley Unified School District that she had envisioned. The park district, in particular, owns much of the open space in Thousand Oaks.

Parks’ criticism, Fox said, was simply politics.

“Frankly, I’m not concerned with what Linda Parks thinks,” Fox said. “My ordinance does a better job of addressing the concern of the people, which is not turning [the city] into another San Fernando Valley.

“Mine isn’t designed to restrict the park district or the school district from making decisions,” he added. “It affects private property, and it definitely handcuffs the City Council.”

One thing is certain: Both the school and park districts are clearly concerned about the effect the Parks ordinance could have on their sovereignty. The park district expressed its opposition with a letter to the city in April. And last Tuesday, just hours before the City Council adopted the open-space protection ordinance after a second reading, the school district fired off its own opposition letter asking council members to delay their decision.

“We believe the ordinance will unduly restrict our school district from carrying out our duties to the community,” Supt. Jerry Gross said in the letter. “For example, our review of the proposed ordinance indicates that it may not allow the city and school district to construct and maintain the park-and-ride parking lot improvements at our Janss Road site without a vote of the people.”

The park-and-ride lot is located on land listed in the city’s land-use map as open space.

Councilwoman Elois Zeanah argued that if the Parks ordinance does not affect the school or park districts, as Fox suggests, then the agencies would have no reason to be opposed to it. She said she was shocked by the language of Fox’s proposal, and regards it as a clear attempt to destroy the accomplishments of the Parks ordinance.

“I cannot believe the arrogance of the author of this initiative,” Zeanah said. “This is a cold-blooded, political massacre of the Parks ordinance.

“This is poor sportsmanship,” she added. “He [Fox] cunningly made sure that the Parks initiative would not appear on the ballot, then he pulls this with his [measure], which was supposed to be completely about private property.”

Fox said he expects Zeanah and Councilwoman Jaime Zukowski to try to sink his measure Tuesday because they supported Parks’ ordinance.

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But Fox noted that his measure would restrict growth--Zeanah and Zukowski’s bread and butter issue--and he maintains that it would be hypocritical of them to try to shoot it down.

“It should come as no surprise that Mrs. Zeanah and Mrs. Zukowski will criticize my growth-control measure, which is very restrictive, when they have been criticizing me as ‘pro-growth’ all along,” Fox said. “That’s because this argument is about who’s going to get elected next fall, not how this ordinance works.”

Parks, who has said she may consider running for one of the council’s two open seats this fall, disagrees.

“In my mind, this is an attempt to return this open-space issue to the way things were before my ordinance,” she said. “At the heart of this is the fact that they don’t want some of these [development proposals] to go to the people, because they will be unpopular.”