City to Consider Pepperdine Request

Pepperdine University has wanted to expand its Westlake operation for several years, and the private school may take a step closer today to getting its wish.

The city Planning Commission is scheduled to decide whether it will recommend that the City Council amend the municipal code to allow Pepperdine to construct a satellite campus offering business courses.

Pepperdine has been stymied by a municipal code that bans education facilities in the city’s two shopping center zones: at The Oaks mall and in the area between Townsgate and the Ventura Freeway bordered by Westlake Boulevard and Lakeview Canyon.

The Malibu-based university has offered evening business classes at a building on Townsgate Road and Westlake Boulevard for the last two years, but it wants to build a larger business campus three blocks away on Townsgate near Lakeview Canyon Road.

The planned 10,000-square-foot satellite campus, to be known as the Ventura County Center, would offer master’s degrees in business featuring courses similar to those at Pepperdine satellite campuses in Encino, Culver City, Long Beach and Irvine.

The Planning Commission examined the proposed code amendment for Pepperdine last month, but some local residents were concerned that the change in law would lead to a flood of private institutions opening schools in the area.

As a response, City Planner Jonathon Shepherd proposed in a memo last week to amend the code so that satellite campuses would be allowed in the shopping zones.

Currently, the city allows such organizations as churches, clubs, lodges, medical labs and music studios in shopping areas.

The Planning Commission recommendation will be forwarded to the City Council.