SIMI VALLEY : Council OKs Plans for Boys, Girls Club

The Simi Valley City Council has approved development of a $3.2-million Boys and Girls Club despite complaints from the owner of a nearby office building that the facility would obstruct his tenants’ hillside views.

The council voted 5 to 0 Monday night to approve the project, which will be built on 1.2 acres on the east side of Lemon Drive just north of Alamo Street.

The 25,565-square-foot center is expected to open in mid-1993.

The Boys and Girls Club now leases 8,000 square feet of space at the former Bellwood elementary school on Kadota Street.

The nonprofit organization provides a variety of athletic and cultural activities for about 2,000 Simi Valley youths between the ages of 7 and 18. Annual membership fees are $5.

The new club will include a gymnasium with basketball courts, a weightlifting room, a learning center, an arts and crafts room, and a photography lab.

The city earlier agreed to help finance the building with a $1.5-million loan to be paid back over 45 years.

Citing the growing number of teen-agers in the community, council members said the new facility is desperately needed and will help keep children away from gang and drug activity.

During a public hearing, Lloyd Green, who owns a three-story office complex nearby, said he supported development of the youth center, but strongly objected to its location and design.

Green and half a dozen of his tenants told the council that the one-story, 28-foot-high building would obstruct their hillside views.

But Councilman Bill Davis reminded Green that before Green’s building was built, the city received complaints from neighborhood residents who said it would block their views.

Yet Green was still able to build, Davis said.

“It’s really difficult to sit here and here you say, now that you have a complex there, that this building is going to obstruct your view,” Davis said.