Neighborhood shopping mall and hotel will replace the old Home Depot
By Nancy Needham nancy@theacorn.com

The former Home Depot in Newbury Park

After a confusing planning commission meeting, a unanimous vote approved a hotel, a drugstore, restaurants, retail stores and a supermarket to be built on the old Home Depot property in Newbury Park.

Commissioners called the empty building on the site an eyesore. Now it will be demolished. The 12-acre lot at Ventu Park Road and Hillcrest Drive will be divided into three lots.

"This property has been sitting idle for a long, long time," Commissioner Daryl Reynolds said.

A contemporary Mediterraneanstyle neighborhood shopping center and hotel was approved. The commission allowed for the construction of an 87,938square-foot shopping center, a 75,950-square-foot hotel, outdoor dining for future restaurants and alcoholic beverage consumption.

"For seven years that property sat there basically blighted, and this is certainly an improvement," Commissioner Al Adams said.

Two monument and two onbuilding signs were also approved.

Usually, only one monument sign is allowed, senior planner Claudia Pedroso said, but since there are two frontages- Hillcrest Drive and Ventu Park Road- a second sign was permitted.

There will be 508 shared parking spaces. Municipal code would require 638, but shared parking reduces that number. Parking that could be seen from Hillcrest Drive is required to be screened by landscape or walls.

Also approved was the removal of an oak tree planted about 10 years ago that obstructed the 24-hour Walgreens drugstore drive-through. The tree will be transplanted. If any oak trees on the property are damaged, they will be replaced with mature trees. If the transplanted tree dies, it will be replaced by two trees.

The southerly driveway on Ventu Park Road and the westerly one on Hillcrest Drive will remain. The southeast driveway on Hillcrest Drive will be closed due to safety issues that include road curves, a substandard road and the nearby congested intersection, Pedroso noted.

Input from concerned neighbors got the commissioners to add several restrictions. One of those prohibits trucks from waiting on the premises before 7 a.m., the time when they are allowed make deliveries, and another permits trash compactors to be run from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. only.

The planning commission meeting was somewhat confusing for those watching and possibly for the commissioners themselves.

The public hearing was opened, closed, opened, closed and then open and almost closed, then closed during the discussion.

"Before I close the hearing again- last chance," said Barry Fisher, commission chairperson.

Also, discussion of the issues continued out of the public's view during what was called a fiveminute break after Commissioner Al Adam asked for some modifications to a motion by Reynolds to approve the project.

After the break and the discussion during the break, Adam changed his mind about making some of those modifications.

The modified motion failed 32. Reynolds' original motion then passed 5-0.