Amgen Expansion Plan Questioned by Thousand Oaks Planners : Growth: Panel fears some buildings in proposed business campus would be too tall. Biotechnology firm will now ask City Council to revive proposal.

Amgen officials left City Hall shaking their heads early Tuesday after the Thousand Oaks Planning Commission picked apart their expansion plan, chiefly because commissioners feared that some of the buildings on the proposed business campus would be too tall.

The biotechnology giant, which has worked for two years with city staff members to design a long-term plan for growth at the company’s 100-acre world headquarters in Thousand Oaks, will now turn to the City Council to revive the plan.

“Our feeling is that we can work with the council at this point,” said Amgen’s project manager, Ed Bjurstrom, after the Planning Commission vote. “The Planning Commission has made their recommendations, but that’s all they are--recommendations.”

After twice failing to reach a consensus, commissioners finally agreed at 2:30 a.m. Tuesday on a revised expansion plan for Amgen’s property, which borders Rancho Conejo Boulevard and Hillcrest Drive.

The version scheduled to be sent to the City Council for approval March 1 includes strict limits on building heights and reduces the company’s freedom to build future projects without public response.

Over the course of the eight-hour meeting, commissioners hammered at city staff members and Amgen officials, asking them to explain how the plan would solve problems created by increased traffic, noise and the closure of a portion of Camino Dos Rios, among other issues.

Because all future growth on the property will be guided by the expansion proposal, commissioners said they did not want to adopt it without thorough examination.

“If this is not the most important decision to come up in the city’s history, it’s got to be among the top three,” Planning Commission Chairman Irving Wasserman said. “It’s extremely important and we have to treat it that way.”

Toward the end of the lengthy session, commissioners had resolved all but two major sticking points.

Commissioners denounced the height elements of the proposal, which allows Amgen to build several 70-foot-tall buildings.

The plan outlined three height districts: On the perimeter the company can build up to 35 feet, and farther inside the property it can build up to 55 feet and in some places up to 70 feet.

Amgen officials told the commissioners, however, that some of the buildings in the 35-foot zone would actually be built as high as 54 feet because the 35-foot measurement is only an average height.

“That makes the structures nearly twice as high,” Commissioner Forrest Frields said. “I think it’s outrageous for the public to expect a 35-foot building and then have it end up 54 feet.”

Frields proposed that the city place an absolute cap on building height so there would be no misunderstandings.

But Amgen officials argued the point, saying the city commonly measures structure height by taking an average of the heights of the building faces.

“The arbitrary height cap is totally unacceptable to Amgen,” a frustrated Bjurstrom told the commission. “To have to go back and redesign these buildings because of an arbitrary limit isn’t anything but arbitrary.”

Wasserman agreed with Bjurstrom.

“If we change the height limits, we change the entire Specific Plan,” he said. “I’m afraid I can’t support doing that, and I don’t think the City Council will support it either.”

But other commissioners--Frields, Linda Parks and Marilyn Carpenter--refused to budge on the issue, and the cap was included in the plan.

“If anything, I think it will be good to bring the (height) issue to the attention of the council,” Wasserman said after the meeting. “They can do what they want, but at least they know our sense of it.”

The other issue that generated heated debate was the element of the plan that allowed Amgen to build without a public hearing.

As proposed, new construction on the perimeter of Amgen’s property would require either a special use permit or an administrative review--both of which require a public hearing. But inside the property, the approval to build could come without public review.

“Eliminating the participation of the public is a very, very serious issue,” Wasserman said, “It’s something we’ve never done before and we found it very troublesome.”

Amgen had requested the freedom to build inside its property without the need for public review, and the City Council had endorsed that idea on the basis that a company with such a strong commitment to the city should be trusted.

Commissioners amended the plan to require Amgen to undergo administrative review, which includes a public hearing, for future construction within the property.

“It’s baffling to me,” Bjurstrom said. “The council debated that subject for hours. I don’t know why (the Planning Commission) would reach a different conclusion.”

Wasserman said that at points during the hearing he feared the two major changes to the plan would prompt Amgen to pull out of the project, but he said he is confident that the city and the company can still reach an agreement.

“Amgen is a business and they have certain goals, and the process of making a profit sometimes collides with the environmental requirements of a city,” Wasserman said. “But I really do think that Amgen is trying very hard to make those two things work together. We all want this thing to work out.”

NEXT STEP

The Thousand Oaks City Council is scheduled to vote on the Amgen Specific Plan, as it was revised by the Planning Commission, at the March 1 meeting. The Planning Commission still needs to vote on three other Amgen projects, for which discussion was postponed because of the lengthy debate over the Specific Plan. That vote was rescheduled for 7:30 p.m. Thursday.