ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE—The parking lot at the Civic Arts Plaza is one of the taller structures in Thousand Oaks. It’s 55 feet from the entrance to the top. The Thousand Oaks Boulevard Association hopes to make a portion of Thousand Oaks Boulevard more enticing for shoppers and lucrative for property owners.

Rick Lemmo, vice president of TOBA, is seeking approval of a Specific Plan that would expand how property owners can use their land.

He emphasized the importance of community involvement in making the changes. “My most important message is by all means, whenever possible, take advantage of the right you have to be involved,” Lemmo said.

The city’s community development department is reviewing a draft of the plan that was created by TOBA.

Community Development Director John Prescott said the city will move forward with hiring a consultant to write an environmental impact report (EIR) after the city defines the scope and other aspects of the Specific Plan proposal.

HEIGHT COMPARISON—This four-story building at Boardwalk and Thousand Oaks Boulevard is 60 feet high. “This is not like a development project with concrete information,” Prescott said.

Proposals for new projects always include specifics regarding the size and other data that are necessary for the preparation of EIRs, the documents that predict the negative impacts from light, noise, traffic and other concerns.

TOBA’s Specific Plan has many variables. Lemmo couldn’t predict, for example, how many new residents could live there if the plan is approved.

The city must, however, make some kind of projection regarding new inhabitants. To do so, it will work with TOBA’s consultant before the EIR can be prepared, Prescott said.

NOTHING HIGHER—The Fred Kavli Theatre at the Civic Arts Plaza, at left, is the highest structure in T.O. The height of the fly tower is 100 feet from the plaza level. After the EIR is drafted, TOBA will take its proposal to the City Council, whose approval is mandatory for changes regarding land use.

Residents can write responses to the draft EIR and attend public hearings that will go before the planning commission and City Council. They can also contact Lemmo, who said he’d like to hear their ideas.

“In these economic times, we have to think outside the box,” Lemmo said.

The proposed Specific Plan covers an area of more than 275 acres that extends three miles along Thousand Oaks Boulevard from Conejo Boulevard, just west of Moorpark Road, and east to Duesenberg Drive.

It includes about 300 parcels with 200 property owners.

Lemmo said the 2004 Community Attitude Survey showed residents want T.O. Boulevard to look better. They also wanted onstreet parking, additional offstreet city-operated parking lots, more pedestrian access and room for traffic.

The majority surveyed did not, however, support mixeduse zoning, which allows buildings with both commercial and residential uses, a centerpiece of the TOBA plan.

The first meeting of TOBA was on Jan. 15, 2007. The intent of that meeting was to summarize the plan’s purpose and hear suggestions about design improvements for the boulevard.

TOBA’s proposal would call for amendments to the city’s General Plan. Thousand Oaks Boulevard would be designated as a four-lane road for the length of the Specific Plan area, and its zoning would change to commercialresidential mixed use.

During a City Council meeting in May, Prescott said the TOBA plan might trigger a Measure E vote by residents.

Measure E requires a public vote if the council approves projects in which the number of residents exceeds that of November 1996.

A vote of the people would be necessary if the mixeduse element is approved and adds more residents than permitted by the General Plan or if zoning changes are approved for mobile home park exclusive zones.

There are two mobile home parks in the Specific Plan that the Specific Plan draft describes as sizable areas of undeveloped land.

According to the draft, “Over time, these parcels may represent opportunities for market-driven intensification consistent with contemporary demand and land values.”

Mixed-use could mean retail at ground level, with offices or residential dwellings on upper stories, Prescott said. The TOBA plan would permit buildings 75 feet high with up to five or six stories, Prescott said.

Structures in TOBA’s Specific Plan, if adopted as in the draft, wouldn’t be restricted by the city’s freeway corridor guidelines, which called for attractive views from freeways, unless buildings exceeded 55 feet in height.

The TOBA draft also proposes the Specific Plan be exempt from the city’s oak tree preservation and protection code that protects existing oak trees unless the trunk exceeds 24-inches in diameter when measured 4½ feet above the tree’s natural grade.

Normally a permit is required to cut, remove or relocate any oak tree more than 2 inches in diameter. To read the Specific Plan draft, go to www.toaks.org/government /depts/community/planning/ default.asp.

TOBA can be reached at toba@thousandoaksblvd.org.

75 feet high: How does it compare?

How tall is the Specific Plan’s highest proposed building of 75 feet compared to other structures in Thousand Oaks?

The height of the fly tower of the Kavli Theatre at the Civic Arts Plaza is 100 feet from the plaza level and 110 feet from the loading dock level. The height of the Kavli auditorium proper, without the fly tower, is 77 feet from the plaza level.

The parking structure is 55 feet from the entrance to the top of the structure, and 58 feet with the stairwell from the drop-off area. The Scherr Forum Theatre building is 60 feet tall measured from the main entrance to the city hall on the second level.

The four-story building at the northeast corner of Boardwalk Avenue and Thousand Oaks Boulevard is 60 feet high.

One of Amgen’s buildings is 75 feet tall.