Developers Unveil Housing Project in Simi : Education: School officials give a lukewarm reception to the revised plan for district land. A proposed shopping center was rejected earlier by city leaders.

Three months after Simi Valley leaders shot down a proposed shopping center that could have raised $39 million for local schools, the developers unveiled a revamped plan Wednesday that calls for new houses instead of stores.

The “straight-vanilla subdivision”--which would generate only about $12 million for local schools--is far less likely to be challenged by city officials or neighboring residents, according to the developers hired by the Simi Valley Unified School District.

District officials, disappointed that residential acreage is worth much less than commercial land, gave the revised plan a lukewarm reception.

“I don’t think there’s one board member who’s not disappointed that we can’t maximize the cash flow from this project,” said school board member Doug Crosse.

“I honestly don’t know if the trade-off is worth it,” board President Diane Collins said.

The district, in partnership with two private developers, has been trying to raise money to repair and maintain its schools by developing a 36-acre site on the northeast corner of Tapo Canyon Road and Alamo Street, across from the Simi Valley Civic Center.

School officials bought the land in the 1960s as a site for a third high school. More recently, however, they concluded that such a school is not needed.

District officials believe the land, now leased for farming, could become a lucrative source of revenue at a time when state dollars for education are becoming more scarce.

In April, City Council members flatly rejected the district’s initial plan to build a 26-acre shopping center, plus 10 acres of housing, some restricted to senior citizens and teachers.

Council members and nearby residents complained that a large shopping center would create traffic and noise problems. They also said Simi Valley has a surplus of shopping centers, many with vacant stores.

The district’s partners, Tustin-based CSA Real Estate Development and Lederer Development of Los Angeles, unveiled the new development plan Wednesday at a special school board meeting.

CSA President Marshall B. Krupp proposed construction of 134 single-family houses with an average size of 2,000 square feet. Prices would range from $220,000 to $280,000, and the project would include no subsidized senior citizen housing or shopping centers, he said.

Krupp said the plan probably would move quickly through the city’s review process because, unlike the April proposal, it requires no zoning or General Plan changes. When the shopping center plan was reviewed by city officials, many neighbors protested, saying they would prefer to see houses on the site.

But Krupp warned that Simi Valley limits the number of new homes that can be built annually. Unless the school district obtains an exemption, he said, it may have to wait in line for five to eight years before it can begin building houses.

The district could not collect its windfall from the project until the houses are sold. And until the building permits are issued, the district must pay more than $30,000 annually to the state as a penalty for failing to use the land for school purposes.

Board President Collins said district officials will study the housing proposal over the summer and probably decide in the fall whether to pursue it. She and other board members said the housing plan is clearly less attractive than the shopping center proposal.

“When I look at the return in comparison to the dollars the other project would have generated, I’m a little disappointed,” board member Ken Ashton said.

The only outright opposition to the plan came from Debbie Sandland, a parent who attended Wednesday’s meeting. She argued that the development plan poses a financial risk to the school district and that the land should be saved for its original purpose--a third high school.

“This is clearly not a time to develop the property,” Sandland said.