Car Dealer’s Expansion Near Arts Plaza OKd

This city’s leaders say they want to help existing businesses, particularly those along Thousand Oaks Boulevard. But they also want to create a district of trendy shops and restaurants around the Civic Arts Plaza.

Sometimes, these two goals meet head on--and something has to give. And that’s what happened Tuesday, when a divided City Council allowed the city’s Toyota dealership to expand into an area whose future was previously envisioned for more Civic Arts Plaza-friendly uses.

Council members voted 3 to 2 to allow Thousand Oaks Toyota to move forward with concurrent processing of its applications for a zoning change and development permit.

The dealership--the only one in the city that is not part of the Thousand Oaks Auto Mall--is looking to grow and take over an adjacent piece of land on the northwest corner of Thousand Oaks Boulevard and Conejo School Road.

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In an unusual political split, Councilman Mike Markey sided with Councilwomen Elois Zeanah and Linda Parks to allow the processing. Mayor Judy Lazar and Councilman Andy Fox voted against it. The expansion plan will have to return to the City Council for final approval.

Fox argued that allowing the Toyota dealer to take over property in the so-called Civic Arts Plaza zone goes against the city’s aims for that section of Thousand Oaks Boulevard.

“I think we need to encourage restaurant-type uses, not auto repair, auto-type businesses,” Fox said.

But Markey argued that the dealership’s architecture could be made to fit in with the Civic Arts Plaza area, and that successful businesses should not be denied the opportunity to grow.

“I’m a little concerned that we’re zoning out existing businesses,” Markey said.

Representatives of Thousand Oaks Toyota declined to comment on the expansion plan.

In a letter to the city, Rick Principe of Westcord, the firm managing the property for its current owner, 85-year-old Bernadette Dugal Vaesen, argued that the entire block of Thousand Oaks Boulevard between Conejo School Road and Oak View Drive has consisted of auto-related businesses, and putting a shopping mall on the corner would make no sense.

The corner lot, a former Chevron gas station, is now vacant, and Thousand Oaks Toyota wants to buy it. Principe argued that the dealership should be allowed to buy the land and continue its auto-related use because, otherwise, it may have to leave Thousand Oaks Boulevard--seriously hampering the city’s efforts to revitalize the area.

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But allowing auto-related uses on the property violates the intent of a zoning decision the City Council made in 1991 that applied to properties near the Civic Arts Plaza.

The council created a special zoning district for some of the land surrounding the City Hall and performing arts center specifically to “restrict any future sale, storage, or repair of any kind of motor vehicles and other land uses which were considered incompatible with the Civic Arts Plaza and future development,” according to a city report.

Zeanah argued that council members in 1991 were only trying to prevent new auto businesses from coming to the area with the zoning district, not keep old businesses from growing.

“I would hate to think that just because we put the Civic Arts Plaza there that we would not allow other businesses to expand,” Zeanah said.