Westlake residents ask: ‘Who wanted park playfields?’ Homeowners get defensive about facilities in their own neighborhoods

Westlake residents ask: ‘Who wanted park playfields?’
Homeowners get defensive about facilities in their own neighborhoods

Westlake Village City Councilmembers unanimously agreed to continue eminent domain proceedings to purchase a site known as Lot 79 and to proceed with building a passive sports park at Foxfield, which is a one-acre lot at Lindero Canyon Road and Foxfield Drive.

According to reports from city councilmembers, homeowners of Foxfield are apparently the only residents of Westlake Village calling for a neighborhood park.

After hearing the public outcry voiced at last week’s meeting, the city council decided to forego a decision on whether Lot 79 should be designated as open space or if it should accommodate a passive or active sports park.

The council decided the decision can wait until the property is acquired. Lot 79 is on Lindero Canyon Road between Thousand Oaks Boulevard and Kanan Road.

Homeowners in Westlake Canyon Oaks continue to lobby strongly that Lot 79 be preserved as open space.

And First Neighborhood homeowners also at the meeting complained about the possibility of soccer and baseball fields and a tennis court at Bennett Park, adjacent White Oak Elementary School.

City Manager Ray Taylor reviewed the history of the Parks Advisory Committee that included city councilmembers Betty deSantis and Chris Mann, one representative from each of the 19 homeowner associations (HOA) in Westlake Village and eight at-large members recommended by the city council.

Taylor said after a year of meetings, they had reached a unanimous decision from the Parks Advisory Committee to find space for sports parks and to hire Steve Lang, a consultant from Purkiss Rose-RSI, (Recreation Systems, Inc.), a landscape, architecture, recreation and park-planning firm in Fullerton, to assist the committee in the four tasks outlined in their mission statement: (1) to inventory all passive and active parks; (2) assess deficiencies in the existing parks; (3) identify and assess opportunities and identify constraints and costs relative to land deficiencies and/or acquisition and (4) to prepare recommendations to address unmet park needs.

Taylor added that despite several articles published in the monthly newsletter, all five local newspapers and information that should have been dispersed to each homeowner through their HOA representative on the Parks Advisory Committee, some citizens have complained that activities of the committee weren’t adequately publicized.

"The committee worked hard in their efforts. They did a community survey and had a return rate of 30 percent, and this was used to gauge interest," Taylor said.

He added that Lang’s final report was presented to the council on July 31 with opportunity for questions and answers at that time. The council delayed any action to allow two months for the report to circulate throughout the city. deSantis explained that Lang’s recommendations were conceptual in nature and were merely a visual aid for the committee.

"But people looked at it as a plan that was underway," deSantis said.

Lang agreed and said he was indeed reticent to put his ideas on paper for that very reason.

"It was really just saying ‘These are our deficiencies,’ and ‘What could possibly happen on these sites,’" Lang said.

City Councilwoman Kris Carraway-Bowman reminded First Neighborhood homeowners that no matter what the city council decides about Bennett Park, Las Virgenes Unified School District owns most of the land adjacent White Oak Elementary School. "We as a council can’t do anything. We should be at the school board meetings … they’re the ones who own it," Carraway-Bowman said.

On that point, Don Weiss, a resident of First Neighborhood, said he’s opposed to spending city dollars to rehabilitate fields that the school district owns.

Jay Markowitz of Tiffany Oaks neighborhood, which is adjacent Lot 79 on the west side of the street, said while he has a vested interest in sports facilities because he has three sons that open space far outweighs the hassle of transporting his three sons around town. He expressed concern about the safety of children who live near Lindero Canyon Road after 30 new homes are built, a YMCA–and now possibly a sports park.

"We’re telling you what we want and don’t want. Look at your own survey. What’s the debate — to destroy open space to build monuments to yourselves?" Markowitz asked.

Kathie Flood of Westlake Canyon Oaks said she has a "sinking feeling about this. We don’t need sports parks. I am adamantly opposed to building on Lot 79. We will not compromise."

Valerie Freedman said her property abuts Lot 79 even though she lives in the city of Thousand Oaks. She added that while she isn’t considered a constituent, she did help to elect Chris Mann to the city council and has been fighting the plan to develop Lot 79 for three and a half years.

"I remember coming to a council meeting and Doug Yarrow, who was mayor at the time, pointed his finger at me and said ‘Stay out of it. This is a done deal.’ Now it’s a community issue — not a neighborhood issue," Freedman said.

Mann said that he felt councilmembers and the community need to think about Lot 79. "We’ve been accused of already making up our minds, and for me it will be finding out what we can do with the Oaks Christian High School, the Joint Powers Authorities and the city of Agoura Hills," Mann said.

The council has been hearing for years about the need for parks, Mann said, and then he speculated that when people realized that a park might be built near their homes, they changed their minds. For example, a lot of requests for parks came from First Neighborhood, Mann said, but they probably thought the park would be developed on Lot 79.