Hillside Estate Development Plan Riles Ranchers

Landowners who live in the ranches above Moorpark are mounting a battle to prevent the city’s northern hillsides from being carved up into a luxury housing development.

A considerable part of Moorpark city lies in the north, a vast area covered by cactus and sage and populated mainly by avocado growers and horse ranchers.

But if Westlake Village developer Paul Bollinger is successful in pushing through his plan, 101 hillside estates will be built.

Bollinger wants to strike a deal with the City Council tonight to build the houses in clusters in return for opening recreational facilities to the public.

The houses Bollinger wants to build are intended for high-income executives looking for a ranch-like setting: 4,000-square-foot mansions, priced from $800,000 to $1.2 million, that would overlook a championship golf course and an equestrian center.

“With such big lots, it’s going to feel like you’re out in the country,” he said.

Some residents bordering the proposed development fume that the mansions would take the country atmosphere out of rural Moorpark.

Eddie Bergfield, 58, a retired aerospace engineering consultant, last year sold his house in Los Angeles and bought a 17-acre lot and house in Moorpark to raise lemons and avocados. He said he is angry that the city is even considering the proposal.

“We didn’t move here to be shoulder to shoulder with people,” Bergfield said.

Moorpark, the fastest-growing city in the county, is running out of large open spaces, said Patrick Richards, the city’s community development director.

Rapid development boosted the city’s population an estimated 4.2% last year, adding 1,059 people. Over the last decade Moorpark has grown nearly 24%.

Despite the growth, Moorpark has maintained a national reputation as an equestrian center.

The ranches and surrounding horse trails in the north are well-known to championship equestrians on the U.S. Olympic riding team, said Councilman Scott Montgomery, who boards three horses at a ranch near the proposed Bollinger development.

City officials said Bollinger’s project, even if it is allowed to be built, would never include condominiums. But it would still raise the density of hillside development.

Although current zoning limits building to one house for every five acres in the northern hillside area, Bollinger is taking advantage of an exception in the city’s General Plan that allows five times as many houses to be built on part of a development if public recreational facilities also are constructed.

“The smallest lot Bollinger will be providing is two acres,” Richards said.

At least one of the landowners supports Bollinger’s project.

“The concept of having a golf course there is good for the city, because it does provide open space,” said Bill Houseman, whose 10-acre property lies southwest of the proposed project. But Houseman said he is in the minority among the area’s landowners.

Other landowners and city officials question Bollinger’s ability to purchase the property, since it is involved in a legal dispute over the assets of Thousand Oaks financier Olen B. Phillips.

Phillips’ assets were seized pending the results of a criminal investigation that involves the defunct Westlake Thrift & Loan.

Bollinger said he intends to close the deal on the property by September, but city officials said it is unclear whether he will be able to buy the land.

After watching Moorpark and other nearby cities being threatened by urban sprawl, some landowners have become protective of Moorpark’s remaining open space.

“I left Hacienda Heights for a more rural atmosphere,” said Jiro Trujillo, 58, an executive in a bankruptcy liquidation firm. “I like the agricultural area. I like to breathe a little more air.”

Trujillo said he built his “dream house,” a two-story Spanish-tiled hacienda, three years ago after he decided to leave Los Angeles. He has grown used to the life of a gentleman farmer, raising avocados while commuting to the San Fernando Valley.

Longtime Moorpark resident and horse rancher Pete Peters has been the most vocal in his opposition to the development. He said he doesn’t oppose development, but he wants Bollinger to be limited to building one house for every five acres.

With a 50-acre horse ranch overlooking the city, Peters said, he has grown used to his privacy after living in Moorpark for more than 30 years.

Peters, who runs an equestrian riding program for Ventura County’s Special Olympics team, says he is concerned with overcrowding and the condition of the hillsides. The sage- and cactus-covered canyons surrounding his property plunge several hundred feet into ravines that are subject to flooding and fire.

“Just because we have a drought, people don’t know we have a flood control problem,” he said.

Twenty years ago, Peters watched as flood waters washed out California 118 below his ranch. Building more houses could alter the drainage pattern for the worse, he said.

The landowners have at least one ally on the City Council, Councilwoman Eloise A. Brown, who has raised questions about the public recreational value of Bollinger’s proposed golf course.

Bollinger has promised city officials that although membership would be open to residents of Moorpark, “fees would easily be $30,000,” Brown said. “That is not a substantial benefit to the city, that’s a private golf course.”