Proposed Tract Would Significantly Boost Pollution, Study Says : Simi Valley: A citizens group disputes the claim on the basis that it exaggerates the number of homes likely to be built. The area also would include a cemetery.

Development of a cemetery and a nearly 700-home housing tract at the east end of Simi Valley would significantly increase pollution in the smog-plagued city, according to a new environmental study.

But a local citizens group whose past concerns about the project have been resolved by the landowner dismissed the report’s pollution claims, saying they are based on old plans that called for more houses than are likely to be built.

The 381-acre hillside property, known as Douglas/Crawford Ranch, is owned by Mt. Sinai Memorial Park, which plans to build a 162-acre graveyard and sell the rest of the land to developers to help finance the cemetery.

If the development were entirely covered with homes, daily car trips would increase by nearly 5,000 and pollution in the city could increase by as much as 45 tons a year, which the county’s Air Pollution Control Board says would have a significant, adverse effect on air quality.

Simi Valley suffers the worst smog in Ventura County because pollution is blown in by ocean breezes and then trapped by mountains surrounding the city.

City Planner Laura Kuhn, whose department conducted the study, said the project will create a smog problem. “It’s up to the Planning Commission and the City Council to decide if the benefits of the project would outweigh the pollution problem,” she said.

A public hearing before the Planning Commission is tentatively scheduled for Aug. 17.

But the project may not generate as much pollution as the study predicts, said Larry Fried, a member of the neighborhood group Citizens for a Safe and Scenic Simi Valley.

Pollution estimates are based on information gathered before tough restrictions were placed on hillside development and before part of the property was set aside for a cemetery and a park, Fried said. So the land now eligible for development is much smaller than originally anticipated.

“Once you take out a big chunk for the cemetery and a big chunk for open space, you are left with two relatively small parcels,” said Fried, who lives in the Indian Hills neighborhood next to the proposed development. “When you factor in hillside restrictions, there’s just no way you can build that many units there.”

Kuhn acknowledged that fewer homes than were included in the environmental report may ultimately be built on the property. The city’s General Plan allows for nearly 700 homes on the property, but since the acreage surrounding the cemetery has not been sold to developers there is no specific construction plan.

“It’s very likely that there will never be that many homes on the property,” Kuhn said. “We took what you might call the worst-case scenario.”

Councilman Bill Davis said he expected the number of homes slated for the development to drop significantly.

“When we set that cap eight years ago, we considered it an absolute maximum,” Davis said. “We’ve seen quite a bit of development in the city since then, and I think that number will have to come down.”

Mt. Sinai, which operates an 80-acre Jewish cemetery in the Hollywood Hills near Burbank, began considering plans to build a second site in Simi Valley two years ago.

Robert H. Levonian, a consultant for Mt. Sinai, said he was surprised at the finding that pollution could be a problem at the site.

“Our clear focus here is to build a cemetery and then eventually sell the rest of the land,” Levonian said. “We are not looking to cram in a lot of houses.”