Has the door closed on Conejo affordability?

The Conejo Valley's housing squeeze took center stage in Agoura Hills last week, as the city's mayor and his Thousand Oaks counterpart gathered with housing advocates to confront a question that increasingly defines life in the 805 region: who can still afford to live here?

The Sept. 30 forum, hosted at the Agoura Hills Event Center and titled "Growing Thoughtfully," was organized by Many Mansions, the Thousand Oaks-based affordable housing nonprofit. Agoura Hills Mayor Jeremy Wolf and Thousand Oaks Mayor Mikey Taylor headlined a discussion on expanding housing options in a region where population growth has stalled, household sizes are shrinking, and costs keep climbing.

The stakes were laid out plainly by Many Mansions President and CEO Rick Schroeder, who noted that the average price of a new home in the Conejo Valley now exceeds $1 million, while the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment tops $2,800 a month, according to The Acorn.

A region that has stopped growing

Communities across the Conejo Valley and eastern Ventura County have "barely increased their population" since 2000, Schroeder told the audience. Thousand Oaks has actually lost residents since 2010, while the share of seniors in the area grows and the proportion of children declines — a demographic drift that Schroeder tied directly to the shortage of affordable housing.

The inability of young adults, families and older residents to find suitable homes — and of local businesses to attract workers who can live nearby — threatens what Schroeder called a "vibrant, healthy, inclusive community."

The forum's keynote speaker, Chris Allen, director of strategic partnerships for the Incremental Development Alliance, framed the problem in national terms that resonated locally. Allen described a "missing middle" in American housing: the duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, courtyard apartments and small multifamily buildings that historically bridged the gap between detached single-family homes and large apartment complexes.

"When the middle disappears, the choices disappear with it," Allen said, according to The Acorn's coverage — the options people relied on "as they transition through their lives."

The numbers Allen cited paint a stark mismatch. Roughly 75% of American households have no children, yet 74% of U.S. housing starts in 2024 were detached single-family homes. Average household size has fallen from 3.9 people in 1950 to about 2.1 today, even as the average new single-family home has ballooned from 983 square feet to 2,647.

Agoura Hills: making up for lost time

Mayor Wolf offered local context that few Agoura Hills residents may appreciate. Before 2022, the city — which was incorporated in 1982 partly to slow development — had never permitted a single affordable housing unit. "So we are making up for that right now," he said, in keeping with state mandates.

Since 2022, Agoura Hills has permitted 404 housing units, including 112 low-income units. The city is also pursuing conversions of vacant office space into housing — a strategy that adds residents without expanding into hillsides or other undeveloped areas. One candidate site is the commercial area across from the Civic Center, which officials are eyeing for a community gathering space. Wolf noted the potential project is no longer being called a "downtown," an apparent nod to the controversy that dogged redevelopment efforts in downtown Thousand Oaks.

Agoura Hills has also adopted objective design standards, compressing a review process that historically took two or three years down to roughly six months for qualifying projects eligible for ministerial approval.

Thousand Oaks and the financing crunch

Thousand Oaks Mayor Mikey Taylor said his city has entitled roughly 2,000 units since adopting its latest Housing Element in 2022, with more than 1,000 under construction. But he emphasized that cities entitle housing — they don't build it. "This is commercial product, (and) very, very difficult to build," Taylor said, pointing to high construction costs, interest rates and market conditions that make smaller projects especially hard to finance.

Thousand Oaks is working to streamline permitting and give developers clearer information about requirements up front, and is considering shifting some development fees from the front end of projects to the back end — a change that could help smaller builders get shovels in the ground.

Allen cautioned that zoning reform alone won't close the gap. Small developers also face hurdles involving building and fire codes, utilities, environmental review, financing and appraisals. "We have allowed the regulatory regime in some of our communities to outstrip the need," he said.

State mandates: 'a blessing and a curse'

Both mayors acknowledged that Sacramento is reshaping local development through laws governing accessory dwelling units and density bonuses. Wolf called the mandates "a blessing and a curse." Looser ADU rules have curtailed local control over setback standards and enabled over-the-counter approvals instead of planning commission review — changes that have added housing for multigenerational families and college students while raising concerns about evacuation capacity and parking on narrow streets, a pointed issue for a community that serves as an evacuation corridor.

Wolf was candid about the political headwinds. "We get a lot of pushback, tremendous pushback, on any type of development, any type of density," he said.

For Agoura Hills residents, the forum underscored a choice the city can't fully avoid: adapt its housing stock through office conversions, ADUs and streamlined approvals — or watch the community's demographic profile narrow as young families and downsizing seniors move out in search of homes they can afford.