Growth-Control Measure Goes to Ballot

A measure that Mayor Andy Fox says will allow voters to control future growth is headed to the ballot after it was amended by the City Council to ensure it would not conflict with a popular open space protection ordinance approved just last week.

But the measure--which was approved late Tuesday by a 3-2 vote--failed to convince some growth-control advocates who say it is full of loopholes that would allow increased development.

If passed by voters in November, the Fox-initiated measure would prevent the council from amending the city’s General Plan to increase density of a commercial or residential project without voter approval.

“Essentially it will freeze the General Plan at its current level with regards to commercial and real estate development,” Fox said in an interview Wednesday. “It puts the keys to future growth in the hands of the people.”

Thousand Oaks Councilwomen Elois Zeanah and Jaime Zukowski voted against the measure.

“It is full of loopholes,” Zeanah said afterward. “This will not prevent us from becoming another San Fernando Valley.”

The measure fails to give voters control over some city-owned and industrial property, Zeanah said.

Zukowski said the measure had been put on the fast track and needed more scrutiny.

“I am not against the concept of the measure,” Zukowski said. “The stated goal was to put the city’s future in the hands of the people. But I don’t believe it does that.”

*

The measure was amended after more than 20 growth-control advocates told the council it would conflict with an ordinance that was spearheaded by Planning Commissioner Linda Parks.

The Parks ordinance--which received final council approval June 17--prevents land designated as a park, golf course or open space in Thousand Oaks’ General Plan from being developed for another purpose without voter approval.

As initially written, the Fox measure would have also required a vote of the people to increase the density of any land the General Plan classifies as park, golf course or open space. But Fox’s measure contained an exemption that would allow development on publicly owned property that was classified as surplus.

After some council discussion, the references to “parks, golf course and open space” were scrapped from Fox’s measure because such land was already protected by the Parks ordinance, said Assistant City Atty. Jim Friedl.

But it was unclear Wednesday afternoon whether a feud over the exemption for surplus property was resolved.

A revised clause that clearly excluded open spaces from the exemption was circulated by Fox in a memo to the council before the meeting.

*

On Wednesday, however, city staffers were trying to clarify whether the amended clause had made it into the final text of the measure.

“The mayor is of the opinion that he intended the amended exemption to make it into the measure,” Friedl said. If the record shows that the amended exemption was included, then no further vote will be required, according to Friedl. If not, the amended clause will be included in next week’s agenda for a vote, he added.

Parks said she would withhold comment until the issue was resolved.

“I was delighted to see that they made an effort to resolve the conflict with my measure,” Parks said. “I hope they will continue their good-faith effort to resolve this issue.”

The originally proposed exemption was contentious because of differing legal opinions about its impact.

City Atty. Mark Sellers said before the council meeting that the exemption would not have applied to open space, parks or golf courses and therefore had no effect on Parks’ ordinance.

But Parks and Zukowski are convinced otherwise. They both sought outside legal opinions on the Fox measure, and were both notified that it would contradict the earlier ordinance.

In a letter to Parks, former Ventura Mayor Richard L. Francis--an attorney who drafted an initiative much like Parks’ ordinance to prevent development of farmland in Ventura last year--said the Fox measure and the Parks ordinance were “clearly in conflict” because of the Fox measure’s exemption clause.

“Which would prevail is a question for the courts,” he said in his letter.

Times staff writer Miguel Bustillo contributed to this story.