Simi Valley Is Moving Ahead With Plans to Update Growth Limits : Development: Despite a Supreme Court ruling, the city hopes to extend its cap on building permits. The Planning Commission will study the matter tonight.

SIMI VALLEY — A state Supreme Court decision earlier this year has caused some cities, anxious to control growth, to reconsider limiting the number of residential building permits issued each year.

But not Simi Valley. The city continues to press forward with plans to update its growth-control ordinance, which places an annual cap on the number of residential permits.

After a numerical cap system in Oceanside was struck down by the high court, other cities, including Moorpark, dropped similar plans because of concerns over lawsuits. Still, Kurt Christiansen of Simi Valley’s Planning Department said the city believes that its system will work.

“The Oceanside case doesn’t necessarily apply to Simi Valley,” he said. “Everyone interprets it a little bit differently.”

Simi Valley’s proposal, which the Planning Commission will discuss tonight, differs little from the city’s present permit allocation system. Like other communities, the city already limits the number of housing permits issued each year. In 1995, for example, 332 permits were available to developers.

The current plan, however, expires next year. The updated version would run through 2004.

Problems with numerical limits arose after Oceanside lost a six-year legal battle with the Building Industry Assn. over that city’s growth-control plan. Daniel Hentschke, Oceanside’s city attorney, said the plan was found to be inconsistent with state law governing the availability of affordable housing.

Other cities, including Moorpark, saw the decision as a warning not to place limits on the number of building permits issued. Moorpark had been working for about a year to replace its expiring growth-control plan when the Oceanside decision was handed down.

“We had to stop dead in our tracks and retreat,” said Jim Aguilera, director of the city’s Planning Department.

Moorpark officials have interpreted the decision to mean that limiting permits will negatively affect the amount of affordable housing built.

“Who’s going to build affordable if they can’t build market-rate housing?” Aguilera said. “From our point of view, there doesn’t seem to be any way around it.”

But Marjorie Baxter, Simi Valley’s senior assistant city attorney, said Oceanside’s plan died, in part, because it didn’t provide sufficient incentives to ensure that affordable housing would be built. Under both the current and proposed Simi Valley plans, a number of permits are reserved for affordable housing, she said.

Eric Taylor was one of three Building Industry Assn. representatives who served on the committee that drafted the updated Simi plan. They argued against the limits, he said, saying they would restrict competition and drive up prices.

Although the association didn’t get what it wanted, it has no plans to sue the city, said Carla Ryhal, chairwoman of the association’s government relations committee.

“Obviously, we’ve still got an ordinance going through, and we’d rather not have that happen,” she said. “But they kept us notified, they listened to us and they did what they could do politically. And I think we’re appreciative of that.”