Picture a place in Thousand Oaks where you can drop the car off in a parking lot and walk out to a street filled with shops, places to eat and … be sure you’re sitting down … pedestrians.

The dream of creating new and sensible development standards that will make Thousand Oaks Boulevard a thriving area that would be more inviting to shoppers, diners, cyclists and citizens is one step closer to reality. In May 2009 the Thousand Oaks City Council received the Boulevard Improvement District plan and authorized the start of the environmental impact review process for the Thousand Oaks Boulevard Specific Plan.

Anyone who has lived in the Conejo Valley for years knows that the dream of making Thousand Oaks Boulevard a place that is friendly for pedestrians and bicyclists has been just that – a dream. But we’re getting very close. An environmental impact report is due by the end of 2010.

The plan for the Boulevard is to make it consistent with the feel of Thousand Oaks, but to give it the atmosphere of nostalgia, the kind of place where you might have grown up.

Much of the American shopping and dining experience today has pushed us into shopping malls with acres of asphalt and a gallery of chain stores. Nothing against malls. They are efficient. But we want more choices.

The Boulevard plan should energize the kind of revitalization and rebirth that will create a destination where you go for one item, stay for dinner, and shop a little bit more. It will be the kind of place where you come face-to-face with your neighbors. Specifics of the plan are available here.

This plan has been created with input from the city government, the citizens and the boulevard business owners and property owners. Members of the BID have made several public presentations that have been received very well.

The submission of our plan to the city has started the ball rolling. The vision for the Boulevard becoming a “destination” is consistent with the city’s overall visioning adopted by the council two years ago. This concept is common in thriving cities that have such districts where people can walk for blocks and experience a variety of retail stores, offices, residences, outdoor dining, entertainment, plazas and public art. It should bring to mind Old Pasadena Downtown or closer to home, State Street in Santa Barbara. Thousand Oaks could have an orderly, reasonable plan for developing such a destination where people could eat, work, live and dine.

We ask that you support this plan with your friends and neighbors. When the time comes, we ask that you attend the public hearings to voice your support. When the issue comes before the council, we ask that you let your councilor know you support the improvement of Thousand Oaks Boulevard.