Housing Agency Seeks Growth-Limit Exemption

The nonprofit affordable-housing agency Many Mansions wants the city to rule its latest project exempt from Measure E, a growth-limiting law passed by voters in 1996.

Arguing that low-income housing should qualify under the measure’s exemption for “public lands,” the agency wants the City Council to reconsider its view that conversion of the Village Inn motel on Thousand Oaks Boulevard into an apartment complex requires voter approval. Currently it is zoned as commercial property.

At stake for Many Mansions is the fate of the $3.5-million project. The group could lose funding and the seller’s cooperation if it must wait until the November election for approval, said Executive Director Dan Hardy.

To make the project better fit within the city’s public-land designation--reserved for nonprofit schools, hospitals and the like--Many Mansions is planning to turn 10 low-income studio apartments at the site into a job-training school. The group will also set aside a dozen units for homeless and disabled people receiving federal Section 8 housing assistance.

Asking the council to consider the question could draw Many Mansions into a political thicket involving frequent council rivals Andy Fox and Linda Parks.

A campaigner for several growth-control laws, Parks believes Many Mansions’ Village Inn dilemma underscores a fundamental flaw with Measure E, written by Fox and approved by 75% of Thousand Oaks voters.

Other growth-control laws--such as the proposed Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources, or SOAR, measure--allow an exemption for affordable housing, she said. Not so with Measure E, which requires voter approval of any development more intense than allowed by the city’s General Plan. So Parks is asking the city attorney whether voters need to amend Measure E.

“It’s a flawed law, but you have to live by it, otherwise you’re going around the wishes of the voters,” she said. “But I certainly don’t want to see it thrown out in the courts.”

Even before Measure E passed, Parks and her council colleague, Elois Zeanah, have been critical of the law, saying it has too many loopholes.

The current criticism strikes Fox as more than a little ironic--given Parks’ frequent criticism of development.

“If Mrs. Parks is suggesting that we change the General Plan to allow for increases in high-density, low-income housing, she’s welcome to do that,” Fox said. “However, I cannot support that. . . . I question why a council member who talks a good game about slow growth would want to undermine Measure E to make an exemption for high-density affordable housing.”

Measure E made no exemption for affordable housing because its point was to freeze the designations set by the General Plan unless voters wanted to change it, Fox said.

But he encouraged Many Mansions to find creative ways to resolve the issue.

“I recognize that Many Mansions might want to modify its original plan so it may be closer to meeting the [public lands] zone,” he said. “I encourage them to do that.”

Hardy said the Village Inn project will fill a “vital housing need” in the Conejo Valley by providing inexpensive studio apartments for city residents who work in low-paying retail, restaurant and other service jobs. The apartments, each equipped with a kitchenette and renting for no more than $400 a month, would be perfect for young singles and the disabled, he said.

With a bank loan, a $1-million state grant and a $1-million contribution from the city, Many Mansions expects to spend between $3 million and $3.5 million to buy the property and renovate it by replacing the roof, converting some parking spaces into community gardens, providing handicap access and adding the kitchenettes.