Straight Talk, not Double Talk

By Michael Farris

Ever feel like you got sold one thing, but later find out you bought another? In Thousand Oaks, there are far too many examples of "T.O. Double Talk."

Q: When is six not the same as half-a-dozen?

A: When you're a developer in Thousand Oaks.

The following are six examples of how a pro-developer majority on the City Council can make a mockery of our development standards and General Plan

1) How can you turn a 60-foot tall building into a 35-foot tall building, with some simple arithmetic?

Our laws state that "no building or structure shall exceed 35 feet in height." You might think that a building that is 60 feet tall would violate this law. But, if you're a developer in Thousand Oaks, your 60-foot building wouldn't. How?

Average the 60-foot part of the building with another 10-foot portion; this gives you an "average" height of 35 feet. Simple arithmetic.

You might also think that this is plain silly, but it is a standard, pro-development slant in Thousand Oaks. Buildings are regularly approved that are 40', 45', 50'-tall; buildings that are less than 35 feet in height are the exception, not the rule.

2) How do our city standards become eroded by a "cascade of waivers"?

Our city standards don't mean anything if our Council chooses to just waive all of the requirements placed on developers. In fact, some projects require one waiver after another after another (what I call a cascade of waivers) in order to be approved.

Take a proposed project that calls for a 50-foot tall building sitting on top of a parking structure. Now, the third story of this building is what violates our city code for building height. (Waiver #1 - although technically, the building height limit can't be waived at all, so it's just "averaged" away.)

The extra square footage of the third story means you need more parking spaces. But since the land can't accommodate the parking, the developer asks for the parking structure.

It turns out that even the parking structure doesn't provide for enough parking, so the developer asks for a 10% reduction in the number of parking spaces he needs to provide (Waiver #2).

Our laws state that parking structures can't be on land that is less than 5 acres in order to prevent overdeveloping the property; this land is around 4.5 acres (Waiver #3).

Our laws state that the parking structure should be in the rear of the property to prevent the intimidating structure from dominating streetscapes; the plan placed the parking structure right on front of the property (Waiver #4).

Now that the site has larger buildings, the developer wanted to have two signs on the property, even though our laws state that each parcel can only have one monument sign (Waiver #5).

As we can see, our laws become victim to pro-development policies that overdevelop our city. (In case you think this isn't a real example, this project was approved by the Planning Commission on April 10, 2000, by a 4-1 vote over my sole objection.)

3) When is a sign not a sign?

To keep down sign clutter in our city, we have ordinances that limit signs to smaller street level signs called "monument signs." Also, each property is limited to having only one monument sign.

Now, you might think that when a developer proposes to have two monument signs, one near an entrance and another one on the corner, then this might be against the ordinance.

Well, not really. Instead of just stating that there were two signs on the property (which would have required a waiver), the city staff refers to the second corner sign as "a gateway monument," so it wasn't really a sign after all and, therefore, wasn't subject to the sign ordinance.

Plus, although the sign ordinance regulates the size of these signs, there are no standards for "gateway monuments," so these "non-signs" can be as big as the developer wants them to be.

4) How can approving a commercial center and 370 new residential units actually decrease traffic by 9000 trips a day?

Common sense would tell you that more buildings lead to more traffic. In fact, the city calculates traffic estimates based on the number of houses and the commercial center square footage of the proposed development.

However, in early 2002, city staff presented a Dos Vientos development plan that (a) added over 70 new houses, (b) added nearly 300 market-rate apartments and condominiums, and (c) presented a specific plan for a 50,000 square foot commercial center. And, according to city staff, this increase in development actually DECREASED traffic in Dos Vientos by nearly 9000 trips per day. (This is not a misprint.)

According to this "new math", the Dos Vientos development could handle nearly 1000 more houses and still decrease traffic. When pro-development policies govern our city, developers can get the numbers to come out any way they want.

5) How can the City can pay $2 million for a private developer project and somehow it isn't a giveaway?

The City Council majority recently pushed through a revised development agreement that allowed for the development of the open area next to the Civic Arts Plaza. This agreement included a 48,000 square feet of retail commercial space, a 14-screen movie theater, and a multi-level parking structure for up to 1000 parking spaces.

In the agreement, the Council majority agreed to pay $1 million of off-site improvements and up to $1 million in development impact fees for the developer. (This doesn't count the 55-year lease the Council majority granted the developer at no cost -- unless, of course, the developer can somehow squeeze out a 12% preferred return on his investment -- good deal if you can get it.)

This giveaway hurts other businesses on the Boulevard that have struggled to build their businesses with their own sweat and hard work instead of taxpayer giveaways. Worthy endeavors, such as the Discovery Center, go begging.

6) Is this land next to my neighborhood residential or commercial? It depends on how you look at it.

Our city has what is called the General Plan, which, among other things, identifies areas of the city that can be residential, commercial, parkland, open space, and used for other purposes.

However, the city staff is on record as saying the General Plan is "general", and that the lines that might divide "commercial" from "residential" are "estimates". This means that commercial land can creep into residential areas, depending on how the City decides to draw this "estimated" line.

And, of course, that may depend on who is bringing the proposed project before the City.

There are dozens of examples of how our standards have become more and more elastic with developer-backed Council members in the majority. If you're a developer looking for waivers, contributing to their political campaigns is a good investment.

We need a Council that won't sell out our standards.