Consultants Hired to Plan Golf Course

Hoping to add another golf course to the Conejo Valley before the next millennium, the City Council and the Conejo Recreation and Park District have hired an architect, an engineer and several other experts to guide the project.

Thousand Oaks has been planning for years to build a public golf course at Hill Canyon to take the load off the city’s only other public course, heavily used Los Robles Greens.

The Hill Canyon recreational area, as the project has been dubbed, would also include a network of trails for hiking, horseback riding and mountain biking.

In a joint meeting Tuesday, the two agencies, working under the title Hill Canyon Recreational Resources Authority, reviewed plans for an 18-hole course and trails area, set to open in spring 1999.

Council members and commissioners voted unanimously to follow the recommendations of an ad hoc committee made up of members from both agencies that has been meeting to study the proposal.

They agreed to hire Irvine-based Golf Dimensions to manage the project, Ohio-based architect Michael Hurdzan to design the course and Environmental Science Associates to write an environmental review. They also hired AMCE Consultants as an analyst.

The park district and the city together plan to pay the project’s expected $12-million cost. So far, they have earmarked about $2 million to get it going. The remainder would come from a bond issue, which would be repaid with a portion of the course’s revenues.