Commission to Take Look at Cemetery Plan

As large development projects go, the Douglas Ranch plan presents a relatively low profile.

No shopping plazas generating noise and traffic. No major housing tracts--at least not yet. Instead, the project coming before the city’s Planning Commission on Wednesday will consist mostly of one 35-foot-tall office and chapel building, and 162 acres of cemetery plots.

A nonprofit organization hopes to build the Jewish cemetery north of the Simi Valley Freeway between Kuehner Drive and Yosemite Avenue. The project would also set aside 134.8 acres of land as open space and include 75.6 acres to be sold later as residential property, enough for 345 homes.

Despite the project’s large size, it sailed through the city’s neighborhood councils and received the blessing of city planners, who have recommended that planning commissioners approve the project and send it to the City Council for final approval.

Some potential neighbors say the proposed memorial park is one of the least disruptive ways to develop the vacant property.

“I’d rather have a cemetery next door than have a 7-Eleven,” said Seymour Orenstein, a Katherine Road resident and chairman of the area’s Neighborhood Council. “I don’t anticipate any problems with it.”

Mt. Sinai Memorial Park has pursued plans for the cemetery for years. In 1994, the City Council approved a General Plan amendment changing land uses on the property to allow for the cemetery’s construction. Now Mt. Sinai hopes to win Planning Commission and City Council approval for the project’s specific plan.

As presently designed, the project presents several potential problems. Nine of the hillside acres on which Mt. Sinai wants to place landscaping, roadways and graves have slopes greater than 20%, a violation of the city standards that govern hillside development. The organization has requested that the city exempt cemeteries from the restrictions.

The project would also create a 60-foot-high manufactured slope next to a road leading through the property, again violating the city’s hillside development standards.

But one commissioner said he thought that both exceptions to the rules might be justified. The 60-foot slope, he said, could work with the proper landscaping. So, too, could the cemetery plots on relatively steep hillsides.

“It’s pretty much open space,” Commissioner Dave McCormick said. “You’re just going to have a few headstones, and the landscaping will be a lot nicer than old, dry brush.”

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Actually, the proposed cemetery will not even have tombstones, instead using just plaques laid low against the ground, according to the city.

The project’s relatively minimal visibility has won it friends in the community.

Robert McLaren, chairman of Neighborhood Council No. 2, said that since the cemetery will fill slowly over time, the project will not bring drastic visual changes to the area. And the finished project will contain more landscaping than buildings.

“When you get done, you’re still going to have a very pretty piece of land to look at,” he said. “In terms of development, you couldn’t get a lower impact development than this.”

Both McLaren’s and Orenstein’s councils voted unanimously in favor of the project.