City Officials React Favorably to Golf Course Plan

A plan to build a public golf course at Hill Canyon took another step down the bureaucratic fairway Wednesday as members of the City Council and Conejo Recreation and Park District gave a generally enthusiastic review to the $16.2-million project.

However, it’s still a long way to the green.

That distance could be a very long drive if state officials decide to fight it. A local Department of Fish and Game official said she will tell the city that her agency has strong reservations about the plan.

Morgan Wehtje, the state Department of Fish and Game’s wildlife biologist for Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, said she wrote a letter to the city opposing the plan on grounds that the Hill Canyon area is simply too important an asset and should not be developed. She is asking Thousand Oaks to consider another city property, the Broome Ranch, located south of the Ventura Freeway in Newbury Park, as a potential site instead.

“Hill Canyon is a really, really important biological habitat, one of the key habitats in that entire area,” Wehtje said. “You take that and put in a golf course--sure, you may still get deer, but they won’t fawn there. You may get birds, but only common ones, not the rare species you have now.”

Wehtje, who did not attend Wednesday’s meeting, criticized the plans for artificial wetlands, saying true wetland habitats are nearly impossible to re-create. And she slammed the environmental impact report on the golf course proposal, saying it trivialized the effects on the area, located west of Wildwood Regional Park.

“Purposely or not, the EIR does not begin to address the impacts of this thing, and they are major,” she said.

“Obviously, whatever their concerns are, we will look at them very seriously and make concessions, if necessary,” said John Prescott of the city’s Community Development Department.

Alisse Weston of the Environmental Defense Center, a public interest law firm with an office in Ventura, said Wednesday night that the group is also concerned.

“The site is not appropriate for this golf course,” she said. “Despite the best efforts of the project designers, it’s going to have a significant impact on the region and the wildlife that lives there.”

Thousand Oaks and park district officials, who have formed a joint powers authority to build the 18-hole course as well as a nature center and network of trails, looked over reworked designs Wednesday that cut the cost from the previous price tag of $20.2 million.

Among the changes are scrapping a costly sprinkler system, using more reclaimed water and replacing man-made lakes with artificial wetlands. The two agencies also decided to send the proposal before the city’s Planning Commission for further review.

The course is scheduled to open by February 1999.

It would lie in a 284-acre area bounded by Santa Rosa Road to the north, Rancho Conejo Boulevard to the south, Wildwood Regional Park to the east, and city and county open space to the west. The golf course clubhouse would be on a hill overlooking the canyon just off Rancho Conejo Boulevard, which would be connected to the canyon floor by way of a shuttle path.

Conejo Creek passes through Hill Canyon, and development of the course is expected to result in significant grading as well as the filling in or alteration of three of the 28 acres of wetlands in the area.

A draft environmental analysis of the golf course plan released in August said it would require the removal of 39 oak trees and could significantly affect several fragile plant and animal species. However, the report concluded that most adverse impacts stemming from the project could be minimized with such measures as building artificial wetlands. It also noted that three oaks would be planted for every tree removed, as called for in the city’s oak tree protection ordinance.

Hoping to stop years of illegal off-roading and hunting throughout Hill Canyon’s sensitive environment, the council and park district also decided to spend up to $25,000 to build a series of gates barring all but emergency vehicles from the area.