City, Developers Help Construct Park Entrance

A dozen years after requesting a new, more scenic entrance to the sweeping western swath of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, the National Park Service is getting its wish, but from an unexpected source.

A coalition of developers and the city of Thousand Oaks--not the federal government--will donate the nearly $600,000 in services and materials needed to construct the new access road to the Satwiwa Native American Cultural Center and the Rancho Sierra Vista, park officials announced Tuesday.

Much to the delight of Newbury Park residents, who had long complained of noise and dust from the existing rough-hewn and tough-to-find access road, the new entrance will originate from the more-traveled Lynn Road instead of the residential Potrero Road.

And construction of the three-quarter-mile road, which will take at least six months, couldn’t come at a better time, said neighbor Jack Short. The Park Service plans to improve the already popular park by adding restrooms, benches and an information kiosk.

“As it stands now, there’s a lot of traffic on Potrero,” Short said. “If [the Potrero entrance] were kept on a semi-permanent, permanent basis, the traffic would be too much to handle.”

Instead, the Park Service will replant and rehabilitate the Potrero access road with native grasses.

Short, a neighborhood activist and frequent park visitor, suggested the plan to Councilwoman Judy Lazar less than a year ago. So long as Dos Vientos Ranch developers VTN West Inc. and Operating Engineers Trust Funds Inc. were grading land for the housing project, he reasoned, why not grade a new access road too?

“It was a trial balloon that worked,” Short mused.

Serendipitously, the engineers union performs public service projects to train novices and agreed to donate $500,000 in services. VTN West did $50,000 in design and surveying pro bono and the city chipped in $20,000 worth of materials needed for paving and building a small bridge.

This way, said park Deputy Supt. Scott Erickson, everyone wins: Developers prove they’re good neighbors, engineers get hands-on experience, residents receive a quieter neighborhood and park-goers finally behold an entrance befitting the majestic recreation area. The Park Service gets all this at a substantial savings. In 1984, before federal budget cutters nixed the plan altogether, the Park Service estimated that constructing a new entrance would cost $900,000.

The new road, which will be lined with native grasses, will end in a 90-vehicle parking lot covered in fine gravel and ringed by California coast oaks.