Simi Valley Questions Effectiveness of Greenbelt Accord

It’s a done deal as far as the Ventura County Board of Supervisors is concerned, but the Simi Valley City Council is scheduled tonight to consider adding about 220 acres to the Tierra Rejada greenbelt anyway.

Although an approval by the council to add the land--which would be kept undeveloped--is considered a formality, several council members have said the vote will give them a chance to have a more general discussion about the greenbelt.

“The vote’s a no-brainer,” Mayor Greg Stratton said. “We get 220 acres for our park district, including a prominent historic landmark [Mt. McCoy], and the land remains permanently in open space.

“Having it on the agenda, though, also gives us an opportunity to talk about what’s happening with the greenbelt,” Stratton said.

The mostly undeveloped greenbelt that separates Moorpark, Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks is dotted with barns, stables and ranch homes.

To preserve that rural buffer zone, officials from the three cities and the county signed a two-page informal agreement in the early 1980s meant to prevent urban sprawl and overdevelopment in the 2,200-acre Tierra Rejada Valley.

The plan to add 220 acres to the greenbelt is part of a larger project approved by the Board of Supervisors in April to build six luxury homes on 60 acres in the greenbelt next to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

The county approved the project despite objections from each of the three cities.

Part of the reason for the approval--which required a zone change to allow the homes to be built on 10-acre lots, as opposed to 40-acre lots--is that the developer is giving the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District 220 acres of land.

That parcel includes Mt. McCoy, a prominent Simi Valley hill topped with a cross.

The land is not now in the greenbelt, and the Board of Supervisors would have to amend the existing greenbelt agreement to include it.

But before the supervisors take action, they have requested input from the three cities.

That input may focus on how the board seemingly acted without regard to the cities’ opinions when it originally approved the project.

“That just called into question whether the [informal] agreement is effective at all,” Simi Valley Councilman Paul Miller said. “I don’t want to get into a fight with the county--they did what they did and we’ve got to live with it. What we have to do now is maybe forge a new agreement.”

Sensitive to how the cities responded to their approval of the small development, Supervisors Judy Mikels and Frank Schillo met two weeks ago with the mayors of each city to try to explain their rationale. They also wanted to make sure that each of the three cities was still committed to the agreement.

Stratton, who attended the meeting, said the session showed that there had been some miscommunication between the various city councils and their staffs. He added that all the parties remain committed to protecting the greenbelt.

A handful of Ventura County activists tried unsuccessfully to crash the meeting to push stricter controls for development in the greenbelt. They also said they were considering a countywide greenbelt preservation initiative, modeled after the recently passed initiative in the city of Ventura.

The Ventura initiative had been modeled after a similar law in Napa County passed in 1990. It requires that all major decisions on development on farmland be put to a vote of the people.

Councilwoman Sandi Webb said she considered that a particularly bad idea.

“I don’t feel it’s right to put those property owners in a straitjacket and say they can’t do anything with their land,” Webb said. “I’m all for sitting down and discussing protecting the greenbelt to see if we are all on the same wavelength, but I oppose putting in stricter controls. I don’t think that’s right.”