A proposal to build Thousand Oaks Boulevard’s fi rst mixed-use development is scheduled to go before the city’s planning commission next month.
The applicant, T.O.-based Daly Group Inc., is seeking to transform the former home of Lupe’s Mexican Restaurant into a two-building, three-story blend of residential and retail, with 36 apartments and three spaces for businesses. A date with the planning commission is tentatively set for Feb. 13.
Five years after city leaders adopted a new set of design standards and guidelines for the boulevard that included incentives to build mixed use, Daly’s proposal would be the first such project to reach the commission. Previous mixed-use applications—including Rick Principe’s plan for the former Conejo Valley Veterinary Hospital site—never made it past the planning stages.
“The idea is to create something with vibrancy where you can stimulate the residential portion of the project to come down here and congregate,” Thousand Oaks senior planner Steve Kearns said while giving the Acorn a tour of the Daly site. “If you had the right uses in here, you can come down here and hang out . . . and everything is self-contained from a recreational standpoint.”
Kearns said the city is anticipating the 4,980 square feet of space for businesses at the site will be occupied by restaurants, cafes or coffee shops. A small park/play area that can be used by tenants and the public is also in the design.
Of the 36 apartments, 25 will have two bedrooms, nine will be one-bedroom and two will have three bedrooms, according to current plans. Four of the units will be live-work apartments with a 490-square-foot work area in addition to the standard living area. Kearns said these will be professional offices suitable for an attorney or an accountant, where you might get some visitors but not a lot of traffic.
“You’re not going to have a boutique or bistro there,” he said. “We’re actually going to put conditions on that limiting use (because) we don’t want to see any kind of use that makes noise or vibrations to any of the other tenants—or odor.”
The tree question
While the building plans are mostly complete, the city is still working with Daly Group to finalize how they’re going to navigate the numerous trees on the historic property.
Near the street side of the site at 1708 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd., three sycamores, a city landmark species, will need to be removed, according to plans. Two small oak trees near the Lupe’s patio will remain but will be trimmed.
The rear of the property poses more problems.
“As you get to the back area, we’re getting into the challenging portion because it’s the slope area and you have more oak trees,” Kearns said.
There, three large nonnative eucalyptus trees will be removed along with some pepper trees, though the city will have to make sure no migratory birds are nesting there at the time of removal. Then there are the trees protected by the city’s tree ordinance. A small California holly, or toyon tree, will have to be removed, and the city is still determining which oaks can be saved.
“I think the last leg of this journey really is finalizing and determining what trees can be saved and what trees have to come out,” Kearns said.
Any oaks that can’t be transplanted will be replaced at the city’s standard 3-1 ratio. The developer must replace each single tree with two 24-inch boxed trees and one 36-inch boxed tree.
“Most of our removals are fairly young trees, and I don’t think any being removed are native (to this site),” Kearns said, adding that some of the native oaks will be encroached upon.
Among those is the city’s 25th anniversary tree, a large valley oak sitting on what is now the east side of the Lupe’s parking lot. A deck will be built around the tree, and the public can lounge at the site.
Kearns said the project meets, and in some regards exceeds, requirements mandated by the boulevard specific plan, adopted in 2011 for the purpose of creating a pedestrian-friendly downtown.
For example, while the plan calls for roughly 840 square feet of public space, the developer is providing more than 6,000 square feet of what he described as a “very inviting public quarter.”
Just as important, the planner said, it meets the council’s goal of creating a walkable area.
“What you want in a mixed use development is to reduce the number of vehicle trips,” Kearns said. “With this development being where it is, you’re going to have some self-sustainable uses with restaurants; you’re going to have walkability to the Civic Arts Plaza.
“You also have Lassens there (at The Lakes). There’s a Latino market and other markets in walking distance the other way, and you have other restaurants like the Tilted Kilt, Rokabab, Subway and Moqueca in walking distance, and the bus stop right here.”
