Developers Can Follow Through on 2 Golf Ranges in Greenbelt

In a move some angry east county leaders view as a threat to the Tierra Rejada greenbelt, the Ventura County Planning Commission on Thursday approved plans for two golf driving ranges in one corner of a quiet, largely undeveloped valley separating Moorpark, Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks.

The votes delighted local golf fans, who have been hungry for another place to practice since the driving range at Los Robles Golf Course in Thousand Oaks closed earlier this year. But it enraged Moorpark and Thousand Oaks officials, who had asked the county to reject the two separate projects.

“I’m a little upset about it,” Thousand Oaks City Councilman Mike Markey said. “This is a case where we all said no and they said yes.”

City council members in both cities said Thursday they may appeal to the Ventura County Board of Supervisors to overturn the commission’s decision, contending that a driving range has no place in the greenbelt all three east county cities had agreed to protect.

“It’s a big, large operation, with night lights and big screens along the freeway--that’s just not appropriate in a greenbelt,” said Moorpark Mayor Paul Lawrason.

Simi Valley officials expressed some reservations about the projects but did not object to construction of either facility, said Mayor Greg Stratton.

Although the two ranges would face each other across Tierra Rejada Road, they are the work of two different developers. One range, proposed by Tom Barber Golf Centers, would line up 75 tee boxes just south of the road. Customers would hit their balls out over a contoured landscape covered in a kind of artificial turf that allows water to percolate into the ground.

The second range, planned for 32 acres just north of the road, would include 30 tee boxes and three practice holes where golfers could practice putting. Instead of artificial turf, the second range, proposed by Ralph Mahan, would use real grass, irrigated to stay green.

Both developers said their projects would meet the growing need for golf facilities in eastern Ventura County. After the Los Robles range closed, golfers who did not belong to one of the area’s country clubs were left with two local options: a Simi Valley driving range without night-time lighting and Westlake Golf Course.

“I believe golf is going to boom even more than it has,” said Tom Barber, who runs the golf concession at Griffith Park in Los Angeles. “The youth need this. Your community needs this.”

Golfers who backed the project at Thursday’s meeting said a driving range, with its neatly manicured swath of turf, would fit in the Tierra Rejada Valley’s agricultural setting.

“I can’t think of anything better in a greenbelt,” said Joe Buttitta, who teaches at Westlake Golf Course. “It’s not like we’re talking about a Costco with a parking lot.”

But Moorpark and Thousand Oaks leaders complained that the projects--which include lighting for after-dark practice and nets to keep balls from flying into nearby fields--would flood the night-time valley floor with light and spoil the area’s rural nature.

The Barber project lies just within the Tierra Rejada greenbelt, a 2,200-acre buffer zone that separates the three east county cities. All three cities have agreed to guard against development within the area. Moorpark Planning Director Nelson Miller told the commissioners they would be setting a dangerous precedent by allowing the ranges on what had been protected turf.

But the commissioners replied that the open-space zoning covering both project sites permits the construction of golf courses.

The approvals came just six months after county supervisors allowed the construction of six luxury homes within the greenbelt. Local city leaders had opposed the homes as well, and worry that the greenbelt agreement gives them no way to protect the land from projects that fall under the county’s jurisdiction.

“We’ve got an agreement that development will not happen there, and the county keeps finding ways to say it’s OK,” Lawrason said.