Council Backs Funds for Motel Conversion

The Thousand Oaks City Council has unanimously agreed to give Many Mansions, an affordable housing group, a grant of up to $1.3 million to convert a motel into low-cost studio apartments.

However, the project can only go forward if voters approve it on the November ballot.

City leaders, at the urging of Councilman Andy Fox, decided Tuesday night that converting the motel into residential apartments triggered the slow-growth ordinance Measure E. Therefore, the move must receive public approval.

Some council members expressed concern that the public might not back the conversion. But Dan Hardy, the group’s executive director, said the organization needed funding assurances from the city or would risk losing a recently awarded $1-million state grant.

With the money, Many Mansions intends to convert the Village Inn Motel on Thousand Oaks Boulevard into 60 efficiency apartments that would rent for $300 to $400 a month.

The group expects to take out a loan to cover the remainder of the project’s $3-million to $3.5-million cost.

The studio apartments would help meet one of Thousand Oaks’ most dire needs: housing for single people and couples who work in the city’s booming service and retail trades, Hardy said.

To meet the funding obligation, the city is prepared to issue about $12.5 million in bonds for this and other housing projects.