Thousand Oaks Annexes Dos Vientos Ranch

Dos Vientos Ranch, the largest remaining undeveloped tract of land in the Conejo Valley, was annexed to the city of Thousand Oaks on Wednesday, clearing the way for work to begin soon on a $570-million residential project.

By a 3-0 vote, the Ventura County Local Agency Formation Commission approved the ranch’s annexation after receiving assurances that the city had addressed air pollution and traffic concerns. Commissioners Madge L. Schaefer and John K. Flynn, both county supervisors, were absent.

City approval of the project, including ratification of its specific plan and environmental impact report, would have been meaningless without the annexation, said Robert Braitman, the commission’s executive officer.

Braitman and other officials said the annexation will also allow the proposed 2,350-unit development to hook into the Thousand Oaks sewer system and enable the city to reap tax revenues that would otherwise have gone to the county.

Thousand Oaks City Manager Grant Brimhall estimated that the city would receive about $256,000 a year in property taxes once the project is completed in 15 to 20 years. But Brimhall said control over land use was the chief reason to annex the property. He said tax revenues would be minimal during the first few years of development.

Thousand Oaks activist Elois Zeanah, president of the League of Conejo Homeowners Assns. and a City Council candidate, said she was disappointed by the commission’s approval. She says she believes that the project violates the spirit of the state Environmental Quality Act--even with the mitigating measures promised by the city. Those measures include more than $500,000 in fees from the developer to promote car-pooling, bicycling and public transportation.

“All they’re doing is allowing developers to pay to dirty our air,” said Zeanah, referring to government officials. “They’re not alleviating the problem; they’re aggravating it.”

John Prescott, Thousand Oaks’ principal city planner, said construction could begin by the end of the year on a 220-unit tract of duplexes that received approval in the spring. An application for a second, similarly sized tract is pending.

At 4,570 acres, Dos Vientos, or “Two Winds” Ranch, is by far the largest unbuilt tract in the Thousand Oaks area, more than twice as large as the MGM Ranch, which Brimhall estimates at 1,850 acres. It is owned by Courtly Homes of Los Angeles and the Operating Engineers Pension Trust in Pasadena, which plan to build on about 2,400 acres.

The ranch is just west of the city between Potrero Road and the Ventura Freeway, at the end of Borchard and Lynn roads.

The developers initially proposed building 3,940 homes and offered to donate the land for three schools and a library as well as several public parks in exchange for approval of the full plan. But the Planning Commission decided to forgo the offered donations and reduced the proposal by nearly half because of concerns over traffic spillover into Newbury Park.

Annexation of the ranch came before LAFCO in June, but a decision was delayed because of continuing concerns about the project’s effect on traffic and air quality.

In response to recommendations from the county air pollution district, the city agreed to extract a $584,320 air-quality mitigation fee from the developers up front, instead of waiting for the money in increments as the project was completed. The money must be used for bike lanes, car-pooling programs or public transportation that will reduce car trips; it cannot be used to widen streets, add signals or otherwise improve car traffic flow, said Gregory Smith, a senior city planner.

On Sept. 20, the city met with residents of Wendy Drive, about a mile from the ranch, to outline what traffic changes they can expect.

Smith said that the traffic flow on Wendy Drive is not expected to significantly change because of the development, and that the city has no plans to either widen the two-land road or eliminate on-street parking.