Home Depot to give it another go?

Company makes second request to build on same site



BACK IN THE NEWS—Home Depot submitted a pre-application in August to develop the former Kmart site on Hampshire Road.

BACK IN THE NEWS—Home Depot submitted a pre-application in August to develop the former Kmart site on Hampshire Road.

Six years after it was denied permission by the Thousand Oaks City Council to open in a former Kmart store, Home Depot appears poised to give it another go on Hampshire Road.

In August, the home improvement giant submitted a pre-application to the city of Thousand Oaks to build a store at 325 Hampshire Road, followed by an updated plan on Oct. 5, the Acorn has learned.

“The fact they’re going through the pre-application process tells me they’re very serious,” said John Prescott, the city’s community development director, who added that members of the department’s staff have already met with Home Depot representatives.

The company’s request for the 10-acre property remains nearly the same as the one it made a decade ago: a 96,973 square-foot main building, a 13,669-squarefoot garden center and 395 parking spaces.

“The changes they’re making are very small tweaks to what went to the council in 2009,” Prescott.

Added is a promise to provide a day-laborer site in the parking lot that would replace the taxpayer funded site at Hampshire Road and Royal Oak Drive, senior city planner Pam Leopold said.

Concern over day laborers was just one of several reasons the council gave for its 2009 denial of Home Depot’s original request. Council members voted down the application 4-1 after planning commissioners gave it their approval.

Councilmembers Andy Fox and Claudia Bill-de la Peña voted to deny the 2009 request.

“I am surprised they have an interest in coming back after six years, and from what I understand what is being proposed is not much different,” Bill-de la Peña told the Acorn on Wednesday. “One has to think about the impacts this would have, like on the small businesses on the boulevard and all.”

Calls to Fox were unreturned.

History

For three decades, discount chain Kmart anchored the shopping center south of the 101 Freeway until the store closed in 2004. Shortly after, Home Depot signed a 20-year lease for the property, a lease that remains intact.

In December 2005, Home Depot began meetings with city officials to discuss its options.

From the start, zoning was an issue. The former Kmart site is zoned C-1, for a neighborhood shopping center. City staff classifies Home Depot as a hardware store, a use allowed in that zone, but the council disagreed.

This time around, Home Depot is asking the city to approve a zone change for the property, Prescott said. Because the change will be part of the plans, the entire project will eventually head to the council for final approval rather than getting it from the planning commission.

Seven years ago, during the course of intense debate, community members spoke out against the store, citing noise, traffic and the negative impact on small businesses. At one point, an initiative—the Right to Vote on Traffic Congestion, or Measure B—was drafted by Home Depot opponents. It required any development that negatively affected traffic to a certain degree to go before the voters.

Although Measure B was defeated at the polls in 2008, Home Depot’s proposal was rejected by the council a year later.

Since 2004, the 109,000-squarefoot building that used to house Kmart has stood vacant. Home Depot sought to sublease the land in 2010, a request that was denied. The company makes use of the parking lot each year to sell Christmas trees.

The next step for Home Depot is filing a formal application, Prescott said.

The community development director could not give a precise timeline because of variables that are outside the city’s control.

“From pre-app to filing a formal application is entirely in the purview of the applicant, and then it’s a matter of going through all the steps, including an environmental impact review,” he said. “My sense is it would be a minimum of nine months to the actual hearing.”

Multiple calls placed to Home Depot’s corporate offices were not returned. Home Depot already operates a store in Newbury Park.


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