Planners to Reconsider Disputed Gas Station : Simi Valley: Shell Oil Co.’s proposal, defeated last year, will get a new hearing tonight. Neighbors fear added traffic, noise.

A controversial gas station proposal that was rejected last year will get a second chance tonight at a public hearing before the Simi Valley Planning Commission.

The commission scuttled Shell Oil Co.’s initial proposal to build a 24-hour gas station and carwash near the upscale Indian Hills neighborhood last August, after considering residents’ concerns about increased traffic, crime and noise.

In the new plan, some design changes have been made, but Shell still wants to put gas pumps, a carwash and a market next to a new McDonald’s restaurant on Yosemite Avenue near the Simi Valley Freeway.

Responding to concerns about noise levels, Shell agreed to erect a 6-foot sound wall behind the development. The project’s new design should also cut down traffic congestion and bright lighting, said Shell’s area real estate representative Larry S. Turner.

“The bottom line is this,” Turner said. “We’ve listened to the concerns of the residents and we’re trying to implement measures that will make the project more acceptable to the neighborhood.”

But resident Eileen Gordon said the proposed wall will not adequately muffle the round-the-clock sounds of large trucks rumbling through the station in search of a fill-up and a cup of coffee.

Gordon, founder of Citizens for a Safe and Scenic Simi Valley, said she and her neighbors fear that the gas station would add to traffic and noise problems that have appeared since the McDonald’s was constructed earlier this year.

“Our concerns now are basically the same as the last time this project was proposed,” said Gordon, whose group was instrumental in defeating the initial gas station proposal last year. “But last time they were anticipated problems and now, as we can see with the McDonald’s, they are existing problems.”

Newly appointed Neighborhood Council member Bill Souder said he has witnessed several “near misses” when McDonald’s patrons driving from the restaurant parking lot swerved into oncoming traffic.

“It’s just a horrible geographic location for the amount of traffic going in and out,” Souder said. “A gas station will increase the traffic and aggravate a very difficult situation.”

Souder also said he was concerned that a 24-hour market selling alcohol would attract unsavory loiterers.

“That kind of place could easily become a gathering point for gang members,” Souder said. “Since the McDonald’s went in, we’ve already seen an increase in graffiti.”

Planning Commissioner Dave McCormick, who voted in favor of the project when it was defeated 3 to 2, said he hopes the design changes and three new members on the five-member commission will help win approval for the project.

“I can see some of the concerns the neighbors have, but Shell has tried to meet some of those concerns,” McCormick said. “Rather than as a burden to one neighborhood, I look at it more from the perspective of improved economics and convenience for the whole city.”

The only members remaining from the group that rejected the project are McCormick and Chairwoman Sherida Simmons, who opposed the plan.

The new commissioners are Robert Swoish, Dean Kunicki and Michael Piper, a former City Council member.

None could be reach for comment, but Piper voted against the project when Shell appealed the Planning Commission’s decision to the council last year. The council deadlocked 2 to 2 on the issue, making the commission’s decision binding.

FYI

The hearing on the proposed Shell gas station will be held at the Simi Valley Planning Commission meeting tonight at 7 at 2929 Tapo Canyon Road.