Ventura Supervisors Reject Home Savings’ Plan to Build City on Ahmanson Ranch

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors Tuesday unanimously rejected a developer’s proposal to build a city of 10,000 residents in a rural area in the county’s southeast corner.

Home Savings of America, owners of the 5,500-acre property known as the Ahmanson Ranch, presented plans for a $2-billion development that would include 3,000 homes, as well as retail and industrial centers.

Officials of the firm told the board they would donate 3,000 acres of the property to the U.S. Department of the Interior for use as a recreation area in exchange for county approval of the project.

Home Savings would also donate two school sites and pay for police, fire and other county services during the first five years of the project, senior vice president Donald Brackenbush said.

But Supervisor Madge Schaefer, who represents the area, said the project violated a range of county policies that prohibit development there.

“The proposal has some positive benefits, but it is in an area that doesn’t meet the county’s guidelines for orderly development,” said Schaefer, who moved to reject the proposal.

The project would exceed county population guidelines for the area and would violate a county policy requiring large subdivisions to be part of an incorporated city, a county report said. The property, in an unincorporated part of the county west of Woodland Hills between Bell Canyon and Hidden Hills, is now zoned for open space.

The closest Ventura County city is Simi Valley, which is separated from the Home Savings property by a mountain range.

Earlier this year, Home Savings had sought annexation of the property to Los Angeles County, which has less strict development guidelines. But the Ventura County Board of Supervisors, which must first grant approval of such an application, unanimously rejected the proposal.

“I can guarantee that I would never support annexation to Los Angeles County,” Schaefer said.

The issue before the board Tuesday was whether the proposal should even be considered. The county’s preliminary hearings on large-scale projects are held to save developers unwarranted expenses in applications and other fees for projects that could not possibly receive board approval, county officials said.

The Home Savings project would have earned the county $11 million a year in tax revenues by the year 2000, company official Brackenbush said. The firm’s offer to create a city with the first 500 residents to move into the development would satisfy the county’s policy against development in unincorporated areas, he said.

The proposal included a 3-million-square-foot industrial park, a 200-room hotel, public parks and two 18-hole golf courses, a county report said. The price of homes would range from $120,000 to $500,000, company officials said.

Home Savings officials refused comment on their plans for the tract after the board’s decision. The board left open the possibility that Home Savings could submit another version of the proposal.