Church Seeks 2nd Chance for Building Project : Development: Seventh-day Adventists ask Thousand Oaks to weigh a revamped plan that includes a shopping center and schools.

Facing a revamped Thousand Oaks Planning Commission and armed with a revised development plan, the Seventh-day Adventist Church wants the commission to take another look at the church’s proposed development, part of which the planning panel rejected months ago.

Church leaders have asked city officials to send the development issue back to the Planning Commission, a request the City Council will consider Tuesday.

That move would allow church officials another chance to sell commissioners on the massive project in Newbury Park.

Covering 458 acres, the project calls for the creation of a new regional shopping center north of the Ventura Freeway near Wendy Drive and the construction of a campus for two Adventist schools, housing and a retirement center on what is currently open space.

“We’ve got a new council, a new commission, let’s move ahead,” said Jere Wallack, assistant to the president of the church’s Southern California Conference.

Planning commissioners in January rejected major portions of the development because they violated city policies guiding growth and development.

But the commission has changed drastically since then. Two members--Mervyn Kopp and Irving Wasserman--left in February. Commissioner Forrest Frields will step down July 10, to be replaced by Councilman Michael Markey’s appointee, John Powers.

The project has changed as well. Revised plans call for fewer homes on the campus and less grading on nearby canyon walls.

However, the schools and housing remain on the undeveloped north end of the property, a point Commissioner Linda Parks said violates the open space and conservation elements of the city’s General Plan. And the revised plan also retains the shopping center, which some commissioners feared would draw customers away from older businesses in Thousand Oaks.

“New stores pull from the old stores,” Parks said. “The moms-and-pops would be affected most.”

Wallack said that an economic impact study commissioned by the city showed that Thousand Oaks must aggressively court new businesses or risk losing shopping dollars to neighboring communities. And he said 56% of the project’s acreage would consist of open space.

But the central issue, Wallack said, is the church’s right to develop land it has owned for decades.

“This whole piece of property is ours,” he said. “It’s been ours for 50 years. . . . We’re simply wanting to build a new home for our students and our retired people on our property.”

Mayor Jaime Zukowski and Mayor Pro Tem Andrew Fox said Friday they supported sending the revised development back to the Planning Commission.

“If it’s a redesign and new project, then absolutely, it should go back to the commission,” Fox said.

Should it come to the commission again, Wallack declined to predict which way the new commissioners would lean. Planning Commission Chairwoman Marilyn Carpenter said the panel would apply the same rigorous scrutiny to the revised project as it had to the first.

“You can’t predict Planning Commission votes, and I’m thrilled about that,” she said.

Parks, who like Carpenter participated in the first vote on the project, said commission newcomers could soon find themselves swamped by the size of the project.

“I feel sorry for my fellow commissioners,” she said, “because it’s a lot.’

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Proposed Development The Seventh-day Adventist Church has proposed building a huge commerical center-including movie theaters, discount stores and restaurants-on part of its 400-acre parcel adjacent to the Rancho Conejo Industrial Park. The church would relocate its school, sanctuary nd senior citizen bungalows to another section of the property. Source: Francisco Behr, Architect