Homeowners Say Creation of Park Hems In the View and Their Spirits

It is not unusual for homeowners to complain of construction in their neighborhood, whether the project be a developer’s apartment house or a state prison.

Residents of a partly completed housing development in the hills above Simi Valley, however, are protesting construction of something quite different--a 52-acre park.

They claim that initial grading of the land has wiped out their high-priced views.

The residents, some of whom have yet to close escrow and move into their homes, also contend that sales agents for the housing development led many of them to believe they would get a “passive” natural park with hiking trails and picnic tables.

Instead, they maintain, the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District plans to build an “active” recreational area with ball fields, a large parking area and a museum for Indian artifacts.

“I’m not objecting to a park, but it’s like we’re not having a say,” said Mark Schuster, who paid $200,000 for his Indian Hills home, expecting unobstructed views of canyons and hills. The proposed museum will slightly block his view of the canyon area, he said.

Parkland Was Donated

The land for what eventually will be Chumash Park was donated to the district about eight years ago by the original developer of the housing project--Westlands Development Co. The project has changed hands several times since, and The Casden Co. took over as developer a few years ago, said Jerry Gladden, general manager of the park district.

Wil Smolen, a vice president of the Casden company, dismissed the complaints as “asinine” and declined further comment.

Gladden said experts have determined that the area is of archeological significance because it was once used by Chumash Indians. That means much of the area must be preserved, he said.

Preliminary plans for the park call for hiking trails, open space and a “small, active play area” on the north end that will take up three or four acres, Gladden said. “We’re not talking about formal regulation-type facilities,” and there will be no lighted fields, he said.

He said the district also wants to put up a building to be used as a caretaker’s residence, nature study area or museum.

Homeowners Voice Objections

About 35 Indian Hills residents voiced objections to those preliminary plans Tuesday night at the Flanagan Drive home of Paul and Kathie LaBonte, who live across the street from the park site. About 45 houses in the development have been sold, LaBonte said.

The LaBontes moved into their $195,500 home in late October, just in time to see a canyon across the street filled with about 250,000 cubic yards of dirt. The fill dirt, donated by Casden, was the excess from grading of other construction sites within the Indian Hills development.

It created a dirt wall more than 25 feet high, obstructing the LaBontes’ view of a canyon and meadow.

“We took one look at the view and it sold us on the house,” Kathie LaBonte said Wednesday as she peered from a second-story bedroom window. “Now look what we’ve got.”

Paul LaBonte and several others at Tuesday’s meeting alleged that sales agents representing the developer did not tell them of the extent of the district’s park plans.

Gladden said the developer was “well aware of the plans for development of the park.”

The park district’s governing board is scheduled to discuss the park development at its Dec. 4 meeting.