Preschool Company Will Contest Planners’ Denial

Fierce neighborhood opposition and a resounding defeat at a Planning Commission meeting are not going to stop a proposed preschool from opening in a Moorpark Road shopping center, say its owners.

The Planning Commission, citing safety and health concerns, voted 5 to 0 last week to deny a special-use permit that preschool company Woodcrest Schools needed to begin construction. The company plans to file an appeal with the City Council.

Woodcrest Administrator Andrea Miller said she believes the proposal will win on appeal. The company, which signed a 30-year lease last year, wants to open the school before the year is out.

“There are 7,000 families that need child care in Thousand Oaks,” Miller said. “We feel this is a good use and a good place.”

Woodcrest officials want to build the preschool and day-care center in an empty store in the Conejo Valley Shopping Plaza. If completed, the school could care for 160 children, ranging in age from 6 months to 5 years. But the company has its work cut out for it.

Homeowners on neighboring streets have filed petitions, written letters and spoken out against what they consider to be noise and child-safety problems. More than a dozen spoke out against the project at last week’s meeting.

The planned outdoor play area, which would extend from the back of the building into the plaza’s little-used rear parking lot, has been particularly contentious.

Residents say they worry that the noise of children playing would disrupt their quiet neighborhood, which abuts the shopping plaza parking lot. Residents also say the diesel exhaust from nearby delivery trucks would pose a health hazard to children.

Leslie Gould, an Equestrian Street resident who helped organize neighborhood opposition, said she is “shocked” that the company is appealing the Planning Commission decision.

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Other neighborhood homeowners agree.

“I would be surprised if the City Council would pass it,” said Equestrian Street resident Josie Bennett. “I can’t think of a worse spot to put a preschool.”

Like other neighborhood residents, Bennett praised Woodcrest for working to address their concerns. But she said the project is simply in the wrong place.

Woodcrest officials are unperturbed.

“We’re still going to try it,” said Lisa Kellenberger, director of Woodcrest’s Agoura Hills preschool. “Right now we’ve run into a little blockade, but hopefully we’re going to come through with flying colors.”

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Company officials declined to estimate their investment thus far, but the 30-year lease and interior improvements already made to the former Wherehouse record store make it clear that abandoning the project now would cost Woodcrest dearly.

Woodcrest’s pending appeal is only the latest event in a yearlong struggle that has taken the preschool project from the edge of approval to last week’s forceful, unanimous denial. In between, the company has spent a significant amount of money publicizing and working on what would be Woodcrest’s sixth California school.

In an indication of company officials’ optimism, the proposed building is lined with ceiling-high partitions and boxes containing children’s play equipment. A colorful banner above the front entrance proclaims that the school is “coming soon.”

The company began constructing the interior of the school without a permit earlier this year, but stopped work after a nearby resident complained.

Before the Planning Commission vote, company officials had good reason to be optimistic.

In February, the project was just days away from routine handling by the planning department staff. That course probably would have allowed the company to bypass a contentious commission hearing like the one that was held last week.

Because of a city notice they described as misleading, many residents thought the project was planned for a busy intersection hundreds of yards from the actual site. But when Gould’s husband, Chris, checked the project with the Planning Department, he discovered that it was planned for the Wherehouse site.

After Gould spread the word, nearby residents sent letters just days before a Planning Department deadline, leading the department to schedule last week’s public hearing on the issue.

“I can’t imagine how it got as far as it did,” said Bennett. Why didn’t someone say in the beginning this is not a good site for the children?”

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Judging from documents in the project’s planning file, the city did not bring up health, safety or noise issues until residents protested. That fact, combined with the sudden switch from administrative handling to a public hearing, has left Gould perplexed.

“Suddenly . . . the planning staff are recommending the project be denied?” Gould wondered. “It is mysterious.”