Lazar Urges Cut in Local Home Permits

Echoing a chord that she struck in her end-of-the year address last month, City Councilwoman Judy Lazar is proposing a cut to the number of homes that may be built annually in Thousand Oaks.

As the city rapidly approaches build-out, Lazar will ask her colleagues Tuesday to revisit Measure A--approved by city voters nearly two decades ago--which allows up to 500 new homes in this affluent suburb each year.

Given that the city’s biggest housing projects have already been approved, that number is probably too high, Lazar contends.

“I think it’s a good time to look at the issue because we’re over the hump in terms of major developments,” she said Friday. “There really are no big ones left. What I see left is mainly in-fill--it’s smaller projects in the 20s and 30s [units]. We don’t have a lot of units left to approve.”

Lowering the cap would allow the city to be more selective in picking which houses will be built.

“We need to consider whether we maybe need to change the number,” Lazar said. “I don’t think anyone can make the case for increasing it.”

It’s also high time to reevaluate which projects get preference under the measure, Lazar said. City officials may want to give more attention to affordable housing, special-needs housing, projects near transportation corridors and so-called in-fill housing--projects that fill the gaps between other developments, she said.

Measure A--also called the Residential Development Control Ordinance--was approved by voters in 1980 and renewed in 1990. Due to expire at the end of 2002, the measure allows building permits to be pulled for 500 homes each year. In a move that predates Lazar’s council tenure, that limit was increased to 650 between 1990 and 1994 to fit a handful of large projects.

A majority of the councilwoman’s colleagues reached Friday agreed with her suggestion that the law be reviewed.

Mayor Mike Markey particularly liked the idea of examining housing priorities.

“The city is one of the leaders in the state in terms of affordable housing--but it’s still not enough,” he said. “So we may want to look at that.”

Two council members--Linda Parks and Elois Zeanah--said they were supportive, if a bit skeptical, of the proposal.

“This is, in my mind, an opportunity to slow growth,” said Parks, a former planning commissioner. “But I am disappointed [that] exceptions have been made to Measure A--when the council allowed the limit to go to 650 and allowed borrowing from future years,” she said. “To me, it’s not effective when you can approve 2,350 homes in a day,” as occurred with the massive Dos Vientos proposal.

Parks added that she believes voters--not council members--should be the ones to change the measure.

Her colleague, Zeanah, said she also favored lowering the cap on new homes. But she questioned Lazar’s slow-growth credentials.

“I don’t see this as a big issue,” Zeanah said. “I see it as a measure politicians can use because citizens feel good about the [Residential Development Control Ordinance] title.”

Of her council foes, she said, “They wrap themselves up in language and feel-good titles, but when you start reading the words, it doesn’t come true. If this measure had worked, we wouldn’t have the over-growth problems we’re beginning to feel.”

Lazar rebuffed those statements, saying her proposal is motivated by common sense, not politics.

“I was for slow-growth before slow-growth became some sort of a password--before it became the in thing to be,” she said. “I voted for slow growth in the ‘80s on the Planning Commission.”