JANN HENDRY/Acorn Newspapers RESIDENTS WANT TO KEEP IT-- A development proposal in Newbury Park would block Silas Avenue, a popular shortcut to Borchard Road. The city will now conduct a new traffic study to determine the impact of abandoning the street. A planned commercial project has stalled. A resolution to close Silas Avenue between Borchard Road and Cindy Avenue in Newbury Park was stalled last week, pending a formal traffic study.

The City Council voted unanimously to send the resolution back to city staff so that the traffic and transportation committee and the public works department can do more research on how area traffic would be affected if the road were to be eliminated.

Louis Padberg, owner of a commercial property at 291 Borchard Road, addressed the council about what he called a roadblock to a relatively small project and said the delay was frustrating.

Until 10 of the 400 Newbury Park residents formally notified about the hearing showed up to speak at the Jan. 9 council meeting, most other attendees thought the closure was going to be a routine matter. But council members listened to the residents, who questioned the validity of a 21-year-old decision by the city to close that portion of a popular route to Borchard Road.

"We were told that this was just a formality," said Padberg, a 30-year Thousand Oaks resident.

On Nov. 26, 1985, the property at 291 Borchard Road was zoned for commercial use with the condition the property owner include the closure of a portion of Silas Avenue in development plans. Abiding by the council's conditions, the current property owners designed the office building they're ready to start building.

According to a staff report, funds were deposited by the property owner to cover the costs of processing the closure as required by the city.

"Has a formal traffic study been done to see how dangerous it would be to abandon Silas and to see whether Theresa and Borchard Road would actually be an improvement over using Silas?" Claudia Bill-de la Peña asked.

City officials said there was no recent traffic study; the study used for the report was the one from more than two decades ago.

Residents noted things have changed in Thousand Oaks in 20 years.

"The staff gave their report today, but the staff doesn't live there. We live there," Arnold Widofsky said.

"Silas Avenue is the primary access route to Borchard and the rest of the world for hundreds of families," Barrett Hines said.

"We were conditioned with this when we purchased the property," Padberg countered.

Historically, the City Council wanted to have a buffer between the homes and the traffic on Borchard. The City Council at the time reconditioned the property as commercial office, the property owner said.

"We've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars at this point getting ready, and we were told all along Silas had to be abandoned," Padberg said.

"If we're going to have to abandon Silas and redraw and reconfigure, we would expect to get some concessions and not have to give up the square footage that we would be allowed to build on our commercial building, even if it would have to go to two-story, and of course the cost is another thing," he said.

Padberg said he would like to be able to provide Newbury Park with a quality development to replace the eyesore of trash and weeds that's now there.