3,221-Home Messenger Project Backed

After years of public meetings, study and debate, a plan to build 3,221 new homes in the hills north of town has won the blessing of a divided Moorpark Planning Commission.

A majority of commissioners agreed late Monday to recommend that the City Council approve plans for Hidden Creek Ranch, a development that could dramatically reshape Moorpark’s landscape and boost the city’s population by a third.

City planners will now draft a formal resolution recommending the project’s approval. Commissioners will vote on the resolution at their Aug. 26 meeting.

The fate of the project, pursued for six years by Messenger Investment Co. of Irvine, will then be in the hands of the City Council, which has not set a date to review the proposal.

The Planning Commission vote came at the end of the panel’s seventh meeting on Messenger’s plans. After listening to 16 residents argue for and against the proposal Monday night, Commissioner Ernesto Acosta announced that he could not support a project that he said would harm the environment and forever change the city’s small-town atmosphere.

“Is it so bad to remain the size that we are?” he asked.

Acosta said he and many other residents do not support the vision of Moorpark’s future proposed by Messenger Vice President Gary Austin, who has worked for years to win the project’s approval.

“He really has a dream for the city of Moorpark,” Acosta said. “Gary Austin’s dream for that area doesn’t match the dreams of the people in that area.”

But the three remaining commissioners--Christina May, Barton Miller and John Torres--voted to support the proposal.

“With growth comes good things and bad things, but I don’t think we’d like to live in a community with no growth at all,” May said.

Miller and Torres both expressed concerns that if the Messenger project is not approved, the 4,300 acres it covers may be developed in bits and pieces, giving the city less ability to shape the entire area.

“I don’t approve of piecemeal building; I’d rather see a planned community,” Miller said. “I’m not in favor of 3,200 houses, but I’m still in favor of the project.”

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Ted Martens, who recently resigned from the commission, was not at the meeting. However, Martens had not participated in past hearings on Hidden Creek because he lives near the site and wanted to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

If approved, Hidden Creek Ranch would take 11 to 15 years to build, Austin said. In addition to the residences, which could house about 9,760 people, the development would include parks, schools, and about 325,000 square feet of new shops and restaurants.

As part of their recommendation to the council, commissioners also agreed that the eastern end of the main thoroughfare through the project, Hidden Creek Drive, should connect directly to the Simi Valley Freeway at a new interchange. The location of the interchange has not been determined.

Messenger had wanted the street to extend no farther than Campus Park Drive, forcing many Hidden Creek residents to use the Collins Drive freeway exits and entrances.

Commissioners also voted to link Hidden Creek Drive’s western end with an extension of Spring Road, scrapping an earlier plan that would have connected the new roadway with Broadway across Happy Camp Canyon Regional Park.

The project’s possible effect on traffic in the neighborhoods near Moorpark College has fueled opposition, with many residents complaining that additional cars would clog their streets.

“It seems unfair to this neighborhood to ask it to absorb so much noise and so much pollution,” said Karen Bill, who lives in the Campus Park area. “I don’t see how we can absorb thousands and thousands of cars, and construction equipment, through what we have now.”

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Other Moorpark residents have argued in favor of the project.

Jim Stueck, president of the Moorpark Chamber of Commerce, said that by bringing new residents to the city, Hidden Creek would boost local businesses.

“A number of our small businesses in town are looking forward to the support this project will bring to them,” he said. “We’re looking for additional people to buy our goods and services.”

Roseann Mikos, one of the project’s most vocal critics, said opponents will now take their arguments to City Council members.

“You’ve just got to educate them,” she said. “I certainly hope they listen to what Mr. Acosta said and it strikes a chord with them.”

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Proposed Moorpark Addition

The Irvine-based Messenger Investment Co. owns a 4,300-acre parcel northeast of Moorpark. The Planning Commission has recommended approval of a development of 3,221 homes that would be annexed to Moorpark, increasing the city’s population by about 9,700 people.

Source: Moorpark Planning Department