Thousand Oaks Development Wins Approval

The Thousand Oaks City Council unanimously approved plans Wednesday for a huge housing development on the 2,500-acre Lang Ranch over the protests of many homeowners living nearby.

The action came at 3 a.m. Wednesday after more than six hours of testimony from residents of nearby housing tracts, many of whom claimed the 2,257-unit project would create traffic and air-quality problems.

Shelby H. Moore, attorney for the Westlake North Ranch Property Owners Assns., said afterward that the group may sue the city. He said the development “makes a mockery” of the growth-control ordinance approved by voters in 1980. The ordinance limited new housing to 500 units a year and stalled the Lang Ranch development.

City officials said they had no choice but to approve the development under the terms of a settlement the city negotiated with the owner of the property in 1986. That settlement ended a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court by Lang Ranch Co., the property’s owner, which claimed the City Council agreed in 1971 to exempt the property from any growth-control law.

“If this development passes, Thousand Oaks will be known throughout the state as having the 98-pound weakling of growth-control ordinances,” Moore said.

The Lang Ranch land is east of the Moorpark Freeway, between Avenida de Los Arboles and Sunset Hills Boulevard. Plans call for extending Westlake Boulevard north to Avenida de Los Arboles. It now ends just north of Kanan Road.

City officials said the development will have only a slight effect on roads and air quality. They said many concerns expressed by homeowners were a smoke screen for the real issue: added traffic on Westlake Boulevard, a major route into the North Ranch development. Under the Lang Ranch plan, Westlake will be extended to provide access to the new neighborhood.

Concern About Road

“The road, that is the real issue, not the 2,200 homes,” Councilman Alex Fiore said.

The settlement, under which the company agreed to drop a $67-million lawsuit, called for the developer to reduce the number of apartments, houses and condominiums from 3,700 to 2,257.

The developer also agreed in the settlement to donate 850 acres for open space, up from 188 acres in an earlier development plan, and to donate about $5.8 million to build an elementary school and nine acres for the school site.

“It isn’t like we rolled over,” Mayor Lee Laxdal said. “Everybody has to remember how it could have been if we’d lost that lawsuit.”