Financial Woes Cast Shadow on Dream of Solar City
Robert Felburg’s dream of building a solar city in Ventura County appeared to have ended in failure Tuesday.
The financially troubled developer had a 5 p.m. deadline to come up with about $3 million to repurchase a huge parcel outside Moorpark, where for years he has proposed building 15,500 homes that would be powered by solar energy. He was going to call the city “Solaris.”
Felburg owned the 3,800-acre tract until October, but it has since been bought by two other men, state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Van Nuys) being one of the buyers. Felburg, however, maintained an option to buy back the land until the Tuesday deadline.
It passed without an exchange of money, Robbins said.
A spokesman for Felburg, John Galloway, said Tuesday afternoon that a meeting was scheduled in the evening at which Felburg would attempt to get the option extended. But Robbins said he knew of no such meeting.
Choice Parcel
With the option expired, Robbins and his partner, Pasadena auto dealer Jerry Simms, are free to develop the land, which is regarded as one of the choicest parcels in southeastern Ventura County.
Robbins said he was not sure what kind of project he and Simms would propose but that they “would not try anything as financially ambitious or grandiose as Bob Felburg.”
The recent history of the land has all the elements of a TV miniseries: There’s old Ventura County money; the city-building dreams of Felburg; a well-known state senator; a secretive, politically active San Fernando Valley multimillionaire; and Moorpark, a 2-year-old city that is trying to decide how much and how fast it should grow.
Felburg for almost a decade has been talking about his Solaris project, which would have increased Moorpark’s population by about 45,000, Moorpark officials said. Moorpark’s population is now about 12,000. But Felburg, who once owned much of Ventura County’s best real estate and listed assets of $93 million, has had a series of financial problems in recent years. He filed for protection under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in 1981, and Ventura County Superior Court records show at least 50 lawsuits against him from creditors and others in the past five years.
Felburg, 64, who lives in Moorpark, would not comment on his businesses.
“He’s a very nice guy who had lots of lofty ideas,” Robbins said.
Several Recent Owners
The 3,800-acre parcel north of Moorpark College, where Felburg hoped to build the solar city, has passed through several hands lately, said Robbins and others.
Felburg, who bought the property about eight years ago, began looking for a buyer for the parcel last fall. At the time he was threatened with foreclosure on the land by its earlier owner, the Strathearn family of Moorpark. The locally prominent family had owned the land for about 100 years, using it for cattle grazing.
Near the end of October, Robbins said, Felburg sold the land to Michael Goland, a San Fernando Valley businessman and philanthropist. Goland generally shuns publicity but got considerable attention when he spent from $1 million to $1.6 million in the 1984 Illinois Senate election to aid a successful effort to defeat Republican Charles H. Percy, former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
A source close to Goland said the Woodland Hills-based businessman bought the Moorpark property both with an eye toward making a profit and to help Felburg, who was a business acquaintance. The source would not say how much Goland paid for the land but said the contract gave Felburg the option to buy back the land--setting Tuesday’s deadline.
Goland held onto the property only briefly. Sensing what he perceived to be an anti-development attitude in Moorpark, the source said, he sold the land less than two weeks after he bought it. The new owner was Simms.
The deal was among political friends.
Robbins said Goland is a longtime business associate and political supporter of his, as is Simms, who owns Nissan and Dodge dealerships in Pasadena. Simms said he bought the land at the recommendation of Robbins. And, in January, the state senator became Simms’ partner in ownership of the property.
Robbins said he and Simms eventually will pay more than $6 million” to the Strathearns, who still hold the note on the land.
Even with the property in other hands, Felburg continued to pursue plans for his solar city. Last week he was before the Moorpark City Council seeking approval of an application for extensive zoning changes for the Strathearn Ranch.
Although the land does not fall within Moorpark’s limits, it is among 20,000 acres of unincorporated county land designated as part of its “sphere of influence,” a state-mandated designation that is supposed to reflect the probable future size of a city.
Personal Plea
Felburg, a thin, white-haired man, made a personal plea to the council, arguing that the Solaris city would be “the best thing for Moorpark.
“It would be a model for every city, state, county, country in the world,” Felburg said. “The benefits are so great, it’s hard for me to imagine anyone opposing it.”
But council members told Felburg that they could not consider so large a project until they had completed the city’s general plan and improved its screening process for development proposals.
City officials said that they fear that local agencies would be drastically overburdened by the solar city and that providing basic services to the area might be beyond their capacity.
“Mr. Felburg’s proposal for a solar city is massive in scale,” Niall Fritz, the city’s community development director, wrote in a report to the council in which he opposed the application. Fritz recommended that a development proposal for another property also be rejected.
Growth Debate
The council’s discussion of the proposal revealed disagreement among city officials about the rate at which Moorpark should grow. Some said development should be severely limited while the general plan is completed, and others argued that developers should be encouraged to bring in their ideas.
The council finally voted to return Felburg’s application for changes to the general plan needed for the Solaris project. The council said it would not accept any more such applications until it completed its review of the general plan.
The only use now permitted at the Strathearn Ranch is agricultural. Under a contract with Ventura County, the owners agree that the land will be used only for agricultural purposes in exchange for tax concessions. Each successive owner of the property automatically becomes a partner to the agreement, which is scheduled to expire in nine years.
Back-Tax Penalty
Robbins said he and Simms are arranging to get out of the contract by paying a back-tax penalty, which he said is “substantial.”
Robbins said he and Simms will ask Moorpark officials for guidance on how to use the land in a way that will be profitable to the partnership without violating local concerns about development.
Although Felburg’s option to repurchase the land has passed, Robbins said, he and Simms still would consider offers from the Moorpark developer to repurchase the property. But he said the price might be higher than before.
Robbins also said he would not attend the Tuesday night meeting suggested by Felburg’s spokesman. “I have a dinner date,” he said, “and it does not include Mr. Felburg.”
Felburg’s spokesman, Galloway, suggested that the Moorpark developer had not abandoned his dream. He described Felburg as a man who has the “drive to make anything succeed despite the obstacles.”
