Developer scraps plan for assisted living on Hillcrest
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CHANGING COURSE—An assisted-living facility proposed for the northeast corner of Hillcrest and Lone Oak drives will not be built due to pressure from neighbors, who did not want the property rezoned. Instead, the developer will proceed with building seven single-family homes.A plan to build an assisted-living facility on E. Hillcrest Drive just north of Thousand Oaks Boulevard has been abandoned due to resistance from neighbors, the developer said this week.
Mohammed Esa of Hydam Development Corporation inNewbury Park was looking at a zone change that would have allowed his firm to construct a 122-unit retirement home on a vacant lot at the northeast corner of Hillcrest and Lone Oak drives.
But in a letter dated April 30, Esa informed Thousand Oaks city planners that he was officially withdrawing his application and proceeding with his original plan to build seven single-family homes on the site. He also wants to build nine single-family homes across the street, where nonprofit home builder Many Mansions had planned to build low-income apartments for seniors. That project was also dropped due to the disapproval of neighbors.
Esa said neighbors didn’t want an assisted-living facility in the residential area.
“It’s a loss to the city,” he told the Acorn on Wednesday. “Placing an assisted-living facility near residential areas and creating that integrated development, where old and young live together, was our goal.”
Many of the opponents were the same people who last fall successfully pressured Many Mansions to give up plans for an 86-unit apartment complex for low-income seniors at 2080 E. Hillcrest Drive.
In both cases, residents pointed to increased traffic and noise and decreased home values, among other things.
After the defeat of the Many Mansions’ project, Esa, owner of the Newbury Park-based development firm, told theAcorn he remained undeterred.
“There is no comparison between the Many Mansions project and ours,” Esa said in September. “(They house) active seniors. Our residents don’t drive. There is no other project that would contribute less traffic than this one.”
Esa now says he’s looking forward to building single-family homes on the 5-acre site. Construction of the project, which has the required permits to move forward, will begin within two months and take between a year and 15 months to complete, he said. The houses will range in size between 3,000 and 4,000 square feet.
He plans to take his proposal for an assisted-living facility elsewhere.
“We cannot put seniors on the fringes of society,” he said. “We will not continue to put time and money into neighborhoods not deserving of this type of project.”
Irvine-based Hunter Development Co. plans to build an assisted-living and memory care facility on McCloud Ave., near The Oaks.
The proposal calls for an 80,000-square-foot, three-story facility with 172 units on the 3.4-acre site. Hunter also wants to add basement-level parking.
The property is zoned for commercial office use, which allows an assisted-living facility to be built there with a special-use permit.
Acorn reporter Anna Bitong contributed to this story.
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