Ambitious Oak Park tree planting helps beautify Kanan community

Photo courtesy Mike Paule, Oak Park Municipal Advisory Council BUFFER ZONE- A view of some of the 34 trees that were planted to help beautify the Kanan Road median in Oak Park and to shield the busy road from residents living in a cul-de-sac off to the side. Residents driving up Kanan Road into Oak Park may have noticed some new additions to the community's entryway.

Thirty-four trees were planted April 11 on the east and west medians along Kanan Road between Tamarind Street and Smoketree Avenue. The trees were added to beautify the stretch of road and to serve as a buffer for homes that sit nearby.

The project came about through the Oak Park Municipal Advisory Council and its landscape committee, which oversees landscaping in the public areas of the community.

"We are thrilled to be able to get these trees in. It's been a long time coming," said Mike Paule, a member of both the MAC and its landscape committee.

The new trees replace those that had either died or been destroyed by errant motorists who had driven onto the medians. Residents of homes along Kanan had complained to the MAC about the need for new trees. Their homes sit behind the medians facing Kanan.

"Residents we've talked to are thrilled we're doing this," Paule said.

The trees include olive, camphor, crape myrtle and liquidambar. Most will remain green yearround. A Chinese pistache was also planted to match an existing one on the opposite side of Kanan. The pistache trees develop brilliant colors in the fall, Paule said. About nine of the new trees are 24-inch box size; the remainder are 15-gallon size.

The committee, which includes Dani Brusius, a horticulture student; Dean Burnett, a master gardener; Bonnie Biddison, a former MAC member; and Janna Orkney, the Triunfo Sanitation District chair, met several times over the past few months to discuss the project.

"The committee has worked tirelessly to monitor our plantings throughout the community for at least a few years- Dean and Bonnie for longer- and this is the result, that we finally get a huge push to beautify Oak Park," Orkney said. "It has been real behind-the-scenes work for the committee."

Enhanced Landscape Management Inc., owned by Oak Park High School alumnus Greg Epstein, did the planting at a cost of $6,000.

Additional work on the medians included fixing broken sprinkler heads and replacing the Oak Park entrance sign that was destroyed after a car crashed into the center median sign in January.

A new sign will cost as much as $13,000, according to Paule. The car's owners were uninsured and have not been responsive to Ventura County officials' requests to pay for the damage.

"The county will have to push forward with some kind of litigation," Paule said.

In the meantime, the MAC is continuing to work on a new sign. The council recently conducted a survey to generate feedback from residents regarding the sign. Most respondents suggested retaining the same style as the original but changing the color to more of an earth-tone, natural look with lighter lettering. The previous sign had a green background.

Other comments included installing the sign about 100 feet farther into Oak Park for safety reasons. Some motorists turning left from Tamarind onto Kanan had complained of difficulty seeing oncoming traffic heading south on Kanan, according to Paule. The intersection at Tamarind and Kanan is the only major thruway in Oak Park that does not have a traffic light, Paule said. The cost of adding a light would be about $250,000, funds Oak Park does not currently have.

Pushing the sign farther in means that six to seven homes located in Oak Park would come before the sign.

The spot where the destroyed sign was located was actually not the beginning of Oak Park, Paule said. The entrance to Oak Park is just past the Agoura Hills sign farther south on Kanan Road. Placing the Oak Park sign adjacent to or near the Agoura Hills sign is another possible option that the MAC will discuss at its next meeting on April 22.