Approval Process Begins for Massive Project : Moorpark: A long, arduous planning and regulatory phase is expected before ground is broken on 3,000-home development.

A massive project that could eventually bring 3,000 homes and about 10,000 new residents to the city of Moorpark is entering the city’s development pipeline, with groundbreaking on the first home possible by 1995.

But the planning necessary before Messenger Investment Co. can develop 4,000 acres looks more like a marathon than a slam dunk. Both city and company officials acknowledge that they are beginning a long and arduous process that will likely span hundreds of hours before the first shovel hits dirt.

“It’s a mind-boggling task,” Mayor Paul Lawrason said. “This is obviously the largest (development) that the city has ever contemplated or gotten itself into, and I’m sure it’s going to be a learning experience for us in some ways.”

The City Council began that learning experience last week, when it hired Michael Brandman Associates of Santa Ana to prepare a $350,000 report assessing the environmental impact of the development.

Council members have also scheduled a joint meeting with the city Planning Commission and Messenger representatives on Nov. 15 to get an early overview of the project--to which the company has already devoted four years and more than $1 million in planning costs. Messenger will pay for the environmental report--part of another $1 million the company plans to spend on the road to city approvals.

“In this day and age, projects of this size take years and years and years, and we knew it going in,” said Gary Austin, Messenger’s vice president. “You have to spend a tremendous amount of time both listening and talking, and that’s what I’ve been doing.”

Austin, who has become a fixture at the council’s twice-monthly meetings whether or not his company’s name appears on the agenda, said he is hopeful that the EIR will be ready for public review by April and that the Planning Commission can begin deliberations by June or July.

If that occurs, Austin said Messenger’s application could come before the council in August or September and final approvals could occur by the end of 1994 or early 1995.

But, in the case of this complicated development, city approvals are only part of the picture.

Because the land is located beyond Moorpark’s current boundaries, the addition of the property to the city will require the blessing of the county’s Local Agency Formation Commission.

Both Austin and city officials said they want to hammer out the specific plan that will govern development of the property and then--if both sides are happy with the outcome--approach LAFCO for the needed approvals.

There is no guarantee, however, that Messenger will be happy with the council’s decisions, and Austin said the company will eventually have to decide whether the approved version of the plan is profitable enough to proceed with the annexation bid.

“There’s a decision point that we will have to face at the point in time when the council finalizes its decision,” he said. “If the plan appears to us to be economically viable, then we would agree to let the . . . expansion application proceed.”

If not, Austin said, the company would have to decide whether to sell the property, pursue further negotiations with the city or take its application elsewhere, possibly directly to the county.

“We always felt that we had to keep the back door open,” he said.

And that open back door may become a key issue in negotiations with the city, because the proposed development faces a series of challenges as it winds through the planning process.

Despite Austin’s early hope that the council would review the project well before the elections of November, 1994, it appears that the development will arrive before city lawmakers in early fall, only weeks before the terms of Councilmen Bernardo Perez and John Wozniak and Mayor Lawrason expire.

“It’s a political issue right now and I’m sure it will continue to be, and as we move toward the November election next year, it will be perhaps the centerpiece of the political situation at that point,” Lawrason said. “I wouldn’t doubt it. It’ll be the most massive thing going on.”

The mayor said the possible political ramifications of the project will not hamper his ability to consider it, a view shared by Councilman Scott Montgomery.

But political fallout is not the only issue that could play a role in shaping Messenger’s development plan.

An advisory committee made up of residents and city officials is currently discussing whether Moorpark should extend its growth-control initiative--called Measure F--and the council has made the drafting of a hillside preservation ordinance one of its top priorities.

Either decision, Austin said, could effect the viability of his company’s project.

Austin said Messenger plans to build between 2,400 and 3,221 homes on the property--roughly half of which will remain open space--and expects construction to take about 15 years.

Lawrason said it is not the council’s intent to rule out development of the Messenger property, either through growth control or hillside protection.