Civic Plaza

Civic Plaza - East

MARCH 8, 2004

(photo from the Ventura County Star)
Mayor Bob Wilson (owner of Cisco's Mexican Restaurants), retreats from his committed position on "Slow Growth".

It's not just the 20 people who worked to get you elected as you claim Mr. Mayor, It's 12,608 residents who voted for you because they took you at your WORD.

Where is the EIR?
Has the City violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)?

Come to the City Council Meeting Tuesday evening and express your opinion!

Just in case anyone has forgotten:

THOU OAKS CITY COUNCIL (SHORT TERM) VOTE FOR 1

     COMPLETE PRECINCTS:         80/  80    
     INCOMPLETE PRECINCTS:        0         
                                            
BOB WILSON..................................12,608   41.4%   
RANDY HOFFMAN.........................11,620    38.1%
DON MORRIS....................................6,097    20.0%

NOW FOR SOME FACTS and OTHER VIEWPOINTS:

Tom Ritch, Letter to the Star

The Thousand Oaks Planning Commission at its last meeting voted to reject the Mitigate Negative Declaration (MND) submitted for Caruso Affiliated Holdings to develop the east side of the Civic Arts Plaza. Only Commissioner Irwin supported Commissioner Glancy's motion to approve the project. Citing numerous concerns over the project's deviation from the City's General Plan, notably building on land zoned open space and removal of numerous oak trees, Commissioners Farris, Wall and Custodio said the proposed mitigation was inadequate to compensate the negative aspects of this project.

Conformance to City development guidelines had never been scrutinized. The Redevelopment Authority's function was to approved the contract, which they did. City Council requested the Planning Commission review the project's Mitigated Negative Declaration and provide a recommendation, which they did. The Planning Commission favored preservation of oak trees and adherence to development guidelines, as was their legal duty.
Major flaws in the proposal included removal or severe pruning of a number of oak trees, which are protected under the City's Oak Tree Ordinance, and building commercial facilities on land zoned Parks, Golf Courses and Open Space. These were sufficient reasons to deny the project. The original motivation for this project, creation of he Discovery Center (a children's science museum), has been deleted from this phase of development. Proposed Discovery Center buildings would be over 100 feet in height, but this gross deviation from normal height limits of 35 feet was not disclosed in the MND due to a typographic error. Relocation of the oak trees is proposed for the same place as construction of the Discovery center. Moving the trees now "to save them" would require their elimination if the Discovery Center is built.

This project has been revised smaller several times. Was the project only now evaluated for standards compliance because earlier versions were even less acceptable? Building on open space, removal of oak trees, buildings of excessive height, and eventual destruction of the "saved" oak trees show the Planning Commission was clearly correct to uphold Thousand Oaks' law and community standards, and reject this project.

Council members Masry and Bill-de la Peña have voiced particular concern with preserving an oak tree said to be more than 300 years old, which now grows where a building is proposed. Councilmen Bob Wilson and Dennis Gillette favor the project "after environmental safeguards are in place," and Wilson has said he would not have approved the original project. Developer Ric Caruso has remarked that he wished he were not involved with this project. The expert opinion of the Planning Commission now certifies the project's inadequacy. Holding this project to the City's development standards and General Plan may make it unacceptable to all concerned. City Council may now have an opportunity to re-negotiate or even eliminate the project entirely. Compensation due Mr. Caruso for wasting his time by not evaluating the proposal in a timely manner would probably be much less than the $12 million - $16 million subsidy this project will receive if it proceeds.

The question of permitting radical development which violates accepted standards and bypasses normal constraints extends beyond this project. Expedited processing recently granted for a major expansion of Rusnak BMW, and for expansion of The Oaks mall, allows bypassing Planning
Commission review. Eliminating Planning Commission review seems likely to lead to development which does not conform to Thousand Oaks' General Plan. Such precedents will make future enforcement of development guidelines more difficult. Together with the Caruso Eastside project,
these expansions will change forever the nature of our community.

For forty years City Councils have resisted the lure of easy sales tax dollars which result from larger retail operations. There have been disagreements, but restricting development has allowed Thousand Oaks to remained a wonderful place to live, almost a small town. All of our City Council supported "slow growth" when running for election. Hopefully they will now support our laws, keep their word to their
supporters, and allow the Planning Commission to do its job. I hope Council's actions will conserve for our children the Thousand Oaks we know and love, and not pass to them a city of large stores, shopping malls and crowded streets.
Tom Ritch

Proposal is a clear abuse of redevelopment law

By Linda Parks
March 7, 2004

Much controversy surrounds the proposed development of the east side of the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza. The first phase of the Caruso Affiliated Holdings' project will be up for review by the City Council on Tuesday.

	Lost in the uproar over the project's multilevel parking structure, movie theaters, inadequate parking and destruction of ancient oak trees is the reality that the project is being funded by the Thousand Oaks Redevelopment Agency, even though it violates one of the basic tenets of redevelopment law.
	The City Council, wearing its Redevelopment Agency hat, is moving forward with its desire to give more than $12 million in public assets and payments to the Caruso project. (The $12,234,000 cost to taxpayers comes from a city of Thousand Oaks report that shows $6,693,000 for the public land being given to the developer, $1 million for the agency paying for the developer's traffic lights and road widening, $3,541,000, which is the city-guaranteed 12 percent profit to the developer; and $1 million for the agency paying the developer's impact fees to other agencies such as air quality impact fees, etc.)
	To do so, the Redevelopment Agency must make a legal finding that the undeveloped land on the east side of the Civic Arts Plaza is "blighted." Definitions of blight include economic blight, such as high business vacancies, low commercial leases, depreciated or stagnant property values, and high incidences of criminal activity. Physical blight relates to substandard buildings and health and safety code violations. The blight must be so significant that neither the private sector nor municipal government, acting alone, can remedy it. Private enterprise can't do it alone, so redevelopment agencies are formed in order to provide funds to cure the blight.
	Of course, we all know there is no basis in reality for finding the vacant property on the east side of the Civic Arts Plaza blighted. Indeed, this parcel may be the most prime piece of real estate in the city. I believe defining this multimillion-dollar parcel blighted in order to give millions of tax dollars for a private developer to build is a misuse of public funds.
	It not only flies in the face of redevelopment law, it also flies in the face of the purpose and intent of redevelopment agencies.
	The way the Thousand Oaks Redevelopment Agency works is that it borrows money and then pays off the loan with proceeds from property taxes it gets from land along Thousand Oaks Boulevard in the project area. The Redevelopment Agency's debt never goes away, though, as more money is borrowed.
	In addition to the city funneling funds into this questionable development project and taking on massive debt, other government entities lose revenue as a result of the Redevelopment Agency receiving a greater share of property tax dollars in redevelopment areas.
	In the past, Thousand Oaks' Redevelopment Agency worked with the other public agencies that receive property taxes, such as the schools and Fire Department, and agreed to pass through to them some of the property tax revenue that the formation of the Redevelopment Agency deprived them of. Nonetheless, the Ventura County Fire District still loses about a million dollars a year from what it would have received had the agency not been created. That means other areas must subsidize the fire service for this area.
	In the end, the city of Thousand Oaks will provide tax dollars to make a developer even richer. Public funds will be handed over to a private developer to build a shopping center on prime real estate that will result in more traffic and air pollution. It's time to call a halt to this abuse of redevelopment law.

Linda Parks, of Thousand Oaks, is supervisor of the 2nd District and a former Thousand Oaks city councilwoman.

From: Michael Farris, Chair of the Thousand Oaks Planning Commission

Mail to: Micfarris@aol.com

Recently, the Planning Commission joined me to recommend denial of the planned development project to the east of the Civic Arts Plaza. Given its central and prominent location, I wanted to let you know why I believe we must rethink our plans for this vital and important area.

As proposed, Caruso Affiliated’s 48,000 square foot project of restaurant and retail space would need significant waivers from city standards. If the city approves this project, it would:

	Build a restaurant and a concrete driveway on lands set aside in our General Plan for parks and open space
	Deviate from our sign ordinance to allow six different types of signs and advertising
	Truck in several thousand dumptruck loads of dirt to the site
	Reduce the amount of landscaping required by city codes
	Provide fewer parking spaces than city law requires, even though some people who now pay for parking at the Civic Arts Plaza may try to park at this site for free
	Copy the architecture of the Civic Arts Plaza
	Amazingly, remove one and severely trim limbs from four of the six majestic, healthy, centuries-old oak trees on this publicly owned land
	All of this is deemed "necessary" because the developer wants to take advantage of Phase II of this project
	An additional 50,000 square feet of development, including a 14 screen movie theater complex and a multi-story parking structure on the same site. The reason for waiving all the city standards in Phase I is because, without the waivers, the developer couldn’t squeeze in all the additional development of Phase II. Common sense would tell you that the developer is trying to do too much with the land.

But these are only the planning concerns. Much has been discussed about the public subsidies for this development, which include sweeteners such as:

$252,000 of development impact fees, paid for with public money (normally paid for by the developer), which could be up to $1 million under the agreement

$1 million in off-site improvements, paid for with public money

Rent-free use of land that the public paid $6.7 million to acquire

The right for the developer to purchase this same land for $2 million

Up to $4 million in "preferred return" payments to the developer, based upon a convoluted formula of revenue generation and the proposed parking structure

All this and there is no Discovery Center, which had served as the justification for it all in the first place. In fact, the developer stated at the planning commission hearing that the Discovery Center has already been looking at other locations, such as the Oaks Mall.

The original plan for this area next to City Hall called for a large open park with grand oak trees serving as the focal point. Instead, this new plan requires removal and severe pruning of these very same oaks. I am disappointed to see that the vision for this area, whose central location is symbolic of what Thousand Oaks stands for, has changed from preserving majestic oak trees to subsidizing private development.

We need to preserve what makes Thousand Oaks special and different from the San Fernando Valley. Unfortunately, this project falls so far short of everything that we as a city strive to preserve and to achieve. We should not be afraid to step back and rethink what we want for this area.

-Michael Farris is Chair of the Thousand Oaks Planning Commission

The following is what was promised. Let's see what we got!

Scenario #1 10.7 ACRE PARK

Scenario #2 7.5 ACRE PARK

Scenario #3 8.8 ACRE PARK

Scenario #4 6.9 ACRE PARK
(voted for by citizens telephone survey )

Discovery Park 4.9 ACRE PARK (This is the current design under review and approved by the majority of the City Council in mid 2000)