Work Completed on 12% Grade for Road

Workers on Friday finished grading the controversial extension of Borchard Road into the Dos Vientos housing project--complete with a 12% slope that some neighbors say is dangerous.

“Steep is cheap, but lives are at stake,” said Diane Smith, who lives where the existing paved road meets the new extension.

“This is good for skiing, it could really be a nice slide,” quipped Newbury Park resident Milan Svitek, an engineer with the city of Los Angeles whose research on the grade helped launch the Borchard Road debate two years ago.

City officials in 1996 had approved the road at the 12% grade--5% higher than city codes would allow--after developers told them that building the road to city standards would cause extensive environmental damage to the hills flanking the street.

But two years later, residents protested at a City Council meeting after a new traffic report declared the road dangerously steep, prompting the city to issue a stop-work order with 300 feet of the grading work left unfinished.

The project’s two developers then filed suit, and Ventura County Superior Court Judge David W. Long on Sept. 28 ruled the city could not stop the developers from completing the road at the 12% grade.

Workers resumed construction almost immediately, and finished on Friday, just two weeks after receiving the judge’s consent.

The city has filed a motion for Long to reconsider his ruling, and has vowed to appeal the decision if he allows the 12% grade to remain. Newbury Park residents are also expected to gather at a city-sponsored town hall meeting at 6:30 p.m. tonight in the cafeteria of Newbury Park High School to discuss the issue.