Threats to Create City Discounted : Development: County officials doubt they would approve the developer’s housing project. The company wants Moorpark to annex 4,000 acres.

A developer’s threats to create an independent city of as many as 27,000 residents next to Moorpark if the city refuses to annex the firm’s property are largely empty, county officials said Thursday.

Three of the five members of the Moorpark City Council have said that they took the threat by Irvine-based Messenger Investment Co. seriously, and that they support annexation. But county officials have since said that whether or not the Messenger property becomes a city, a development of the size sought by the company would probably not be approved.

“That’s big talk on the developer’s part,” said Keith Turner, Ventura County’s planning director. “If the city says no” to Messenger’s proposal, “that doesn’t mean the county’s going to say yes.”

The company wants to build 4,800 housing units on the mostly vacant 4,000-acre hillside site, which Messenger spokesman Gary Austin told the City Council would add about 14,500 residents to Moorpark’s population of 26,000.

If, however, Moorpark refused to redraw its boundaries to include the site, he said, the company could incorporate the development as an independent city. Under that alternative, the company would eventually build about 9,600 housing units for 27,000 residents.

Austin said last week that county officials told Messenger to ask Moorpark to annex the property because the county requires that developments such as the one proposed be built within city boundaries.

Robert Embry, chairman of the five-member Local Agency Formation Commission, said this week that he doubted that Messenger would be allowed to incorporate if Moorpark objected.

“LAFCO would be loathe to interfere,” Embry said.

Besides getting LAFCO’s support, Messenger would have to get the county to endorse development plans for the site.

Moorpark City Council members had speculated last week that the county would probably approve Messenger’s development plans because of the fees they would generate.

But Supervisor Vicky Howard disputed that contention. She said such development fees would come too late to help with the county’s current budget problems.

Besides, Turner said, the county probably wouldn’t approve any development of more than one housing unit per 40 acres on the hillside property.

“The county is not in the urban development business,” Turner said, adding that the county’s planning guidelines call for such subdivisions to be within city boundaries. It would be too expensive for the county to build roads, a sewer and a water pipeline system and to provide police, fire and other public services to the area, he said.

But Austin said it would not be economically feasible for the company to build one house per 40 acres or even one house per 10 acres.

Messenger will seek county approval to build one house per acre, or 4,000 homes, if Moorpark doesn’t annex the property, he said. He said the earlier vow to build 9,600 houses represented the property’s eventual build-out potential.

Austin acknowledged that “it would be a real hard effort on our part” to get county approval.

Moorpark Mayor Paul W. Lawrason Jr. said Turner’s comments regarding the unlikelihood of Messenger winning county approval for its development plans do not reassure him.

“It sounds like the county party line at the present time,” Lawrason said.

Both Lawrason and Austin said there are precedents for urban development in unincorporated areas of the county, including projects in the Santa Rosa Valley and at Lake Sherwood and the proposed Ahmanson-Jordan Ranch project.

NEXT STEP

Before Moorpark could annex the Messenger site the City Council would have to vote to expand its sphere of influence. The last public hearing on the expansion is set for 9 a.m. Saturday at City Hall. The Local Agency Formation Commission would also have to approve the annexation. Then Messenger could make a formal application to the city for approval. If the city refuses to annex the property, the developer would make a formal application to the county.