Open Space Versus Development

* A recent letter writing-campaign by the recall Zeanah folks incorrectly states that Woodridge would have allowed for 700 houses if the City Council majority of Andy Fox, Judy Lazar and Mike Markey hadn’t approved 252 houses there. They falsely accuse myself and Councilwoman Elois Zeanah of having approved a city plan allowing 700 houses on the Woodridge property.

Actually, Woodridge was zoned for four houses, not 700. I would like to remind the letter writers that the Woodridge property was zoned by the county as open space, which would have allowed for only four houses and would have kept intact the open space buffer between Thousand Oaks and Simi.

Once Fox, Lazar and Markey voted to annex the Woodridge property into the city boundaries, the laws of our city should have applied to the project. However, the same council members who chose to annex Woodridge into our city chose not to apply our ridgeline ordinances and hillside zoning laws and more houses were approved than permitted under our codes.

The environmental report and staff report on this project stated that, if the Woodridge developers were required to abide by these laws, scores of houses that the council majority permitted would not have been allowed.

While I was able to do a successful initiative that made a law to protect lands designated for open space in our city from being converted into more housing tracts and shopping malls, it will take a countywide initiative to protect lands designated for open space in the county. That is why I am working to pass the SOAR initiative (Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources).

The passage of the SOAR initiative will take the authority to rezone lands set aside as open space away from the politicians and place it in the hands of the voters. Greenbelts and buffers between the cities in the county (such as Woodridge, the Tierra Rejada Valley and Ahmanson Ranch) are being gobbled up with development and it is apparent that the political bodies charged with holding the line on overdevelopment need your help. I hope you will join me in supporting SOAR.

LINDA PARKS

Mayor pro tem

Thousand Oaks

* What do four sitting city council members, two former council members, a planning commissioner, a veritable who’s who of no-growth advocates and a roving environmental gun-for-hire have in common?

Answer: Now that they have used “the system” to destroy the potential development rights and property values of large tracts of land throughout the county, they don’t think public officials can be trusted any more.

Feeling that politicians are so susceptible to the evils of the “wealthy developers’ lobby,” this band of misfits thinks it is necessary to enact a countywide law that strips the ability to make wise land-use decisions from those who were chosen by the majority of the electorate to represent them in such matters.

With its user-friendly representatives rapidly becoming an endangered species, this group is nervously watching its stranglehold on progress slowly slipping away. And, not having the riches they hoped for from 1994’s ill-fated Proposition 180, these people have resorted to police-powers usurpation (that is legal only because the case has yet to appear before the U.S. Supreme Court) to tie up property owners’ rights.

Realizing the salvation of its agenda depends on soft-selling an unwitting public, the Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources coalition has embarked on a campaign to convince voters that “corruptible” politicians should have to obtain voter approval before they change lands zoned for open space and agriculture to land zoned for development.

If it were not for the sheer audacity and blatant hypocrisy of this movement, it would almost appear to be a noble cause. But when SOAR advocates claim their purpose is “to stop urban sprawl before we lose our precious . . . lands,” they neglect to mention that a lot of “our” land that “we” stand to lose is private property, the rights of which owners would like to enjoy in the same manner as SOAR advocates do with theirs.

Their scam would be swallowed more easily if each of them were to raze their home and donate their land to one of the local land conservancies.

Because of the true meaning of SOAR--Sap Other Americans’ Rights--this is not likely to ever happen. Your donations and support are better targeted for groups that view our Constitution with a less myopic eye.

BRUCE ROLAND

Ojai