Groundbreaking Held for 113 New Homes in Quake-Ravaged Piru : Housing: Citrus View project will include one- and two-story structures on 22 acres. It’s a first for the town.

Officials and residents in tiny Piru, hard-hit last year by the Northridge earthquake, turned out Wednesday to see ground broken on a subdivision that will increase the community’s housing by 25%.

About 150 of Piru’s 400 houses were damaged or destroyed during the quake, said Al Gaitan, head of the Piru Neighborhood Council.

“We are really excited about the project,” Gaitan said. “We have had a lot of overcrowding, and new houses will make a big difference in the community.”

The Citrus View Homes project, the first housing development ever for the town of about 1,200 residents, will include 113 one- and two-story homes on a 22-acre parcel at Main Street and Via Fustero.

The project is the result of a partnership between the developer, Ventura Communities, and the county.

To make houses affordable to low-income families, the county waived and deferred some construction fees and provided no-interest loans to the developer, said Lynn Jacobs, president of Ventura Communities.

Because of the county’s financial assistance, the prices of the houses will range from $150,000 to $170,000 instead of from $225,000 to $250,000, Jacobs said.

Although the development was proposed in 1988, the quake helped to expedite the project, said county Supervisor Maggie Kildee.

“This project just shows that you can make good things happen out of bad things,” Kildee said. “Piru was one of the few communities to benefit from the earthquake in the long run.”

Jacobs has been working with Piru residents and county officials to develop the project since 1988. She attended at least 50 neighborhood meetings, during which she surveyed residents for their input on the design of the houses.

“It was really important for them that the houses had front porches,” Jacobs said.

The houses will range from 1,350 to 1,814 square feet and will include two-car garages, front-yard landscaping with sprinklers and frame and stucco construction.

The first houses are expected to be ready for occupancy in February, 1996, and the entire project should be completed by December, 1996, Jacobs said.

Citrus View Homes is one of several county projects aimed at improving Piru, said Marty Robinson, deputy chief administrative officer for Ventura County.

Some of the county’s plans for Piru include hiring a consultant to study how the community can improve tourism and repairing the building that housed Citizens State Bank, which left after the quake, and to bring another bank to Piru, Robinson said.

Within the next month, Robinson said, the county will mail a survey to every Piru resident asking if they still need assistance to repair their quake-damaged homes.

In addition, the Area Housing Authority of the County of Ventura finished a low-income, 35-unit apartment building a month ago.

The Colina Vista apartments, now occupied by several local residents, are the first built in Piru in the past 40 years, said Gaitan, 53, and a Piru native.

“We finally have a sense that we have not been forgotten,” said Gaitan, who recently moved into one of the new apartments. “We are so small and so far away from everything that people have a tendency to forget that we exist.”

Gaitan, his 83-year-old mother and his disabled brother were forced to share a one-bedroom house after the quake because their 64-year-old home was destroyed during the quake.

For Joann and George Casarez, who are one of about 230 families who applied to purchase one of the Citrus View Homes the project offers them a chance to own their own residence.

“Our dream is to not ever leave Piru,” said Joann Casarez, who works as a clerk at Kmart. “Owning a house there is everything we ever wanted.”

The couple hope to get a $20,000 loan from the county’s BEGIN grant program to use as a down payment. The county has $500,000 to loan to approximately 24 first-time home buyers purchasing houses at Citrus View Homes, Robinson said.