MOORPARK : City Weighs Housing Near Rural Enclave

A Moorpark housing development is poised to engulf one of the last rural enclaves within the city limits.

The Moorpark City Council is expected Wednesday to approve the development, which would put about 1,000 people on a lot next to the 30 or so older homes on Maureen Lane.

Residents in the quiet, tree-lined neighborhood fear that the development may spell the end of their way of life and threaten their menageries of horses, geese, ducks, chickens and peacocks.

“We know building is inevitable,” resident Lucy Burkard said. “But my feeling is city folk and country folk don’t mix.”

The development, by the Westland Co. of Ventura, would put 291 residences--116 houses and 175 townhouses--just east of Maureen Lane. The density of the project would require a change in zoning. Although existing zoning allows only about three housing units per acre in that area, the Westland project would have from 4.6 units per acre for the single-family houses and 14.6 units per acre for the townhouses.

Westland pleased the residents by adding a noise wall and other changes to protect their privacy, residents said. But at a recent City Council meeting, resident Daniel Stack expressed his frustration at city officials.

“Nobody has ever come to us and talked to us about what this density is going to do,” Stack said. “Because you’re going to be putting 1,100 people in my back yard, I don’t want my animals destroyed or to have to sell them.”

Other residents echoed Stack’s concern. Their new neighbors may resent the dust stirred up by the horses, or the flies, smell and noise from the animals.

“The peacocks start about 5 a.m.,” resident Lucy Burkard said. Sometimes the other animals chime in, she said. “Anything can set the animals off, like a loud meow. The geese start honking, the rooster starts crowing.

“I’ve seen it in the past,” Burkard said. “Neighbors not happy with the noise throw poison over the fence.”

Even a city planning document said “odors, animal husbandry and noise are problems that can be anticipated where semi-rural and high-density urban uses are contiguous.”

Moorpark city officials said they are willing to allow the high density because the development includes 100 units of affordable housing. The city needs about 1,500 affordable housing units to bring it up to state standards, a planning document shows.

“I don’t like Moorpark the way it is,” resident Leonard Patterson said. “I liked it the way it was.” But “you can’t put a big gate on the Santa Susana Pass and say no more people can move in this direction, as much as you’d like to do that sometimes.”