652-Home Wood Ranch Project Winning Support on All Fronts

It’s an unlikely scenario.

A developer comes to city officials with plans to build a 652-home mini-village on the city’s rolling hillsides, and there isn’t an ounce of opposition.

That is precisely what has happened so far with the proposed Long Canyon Village in Wood Ranch, which comes before the Simi Valley Planning Commission on Wednesday.

“So far, I have not heard any comments opposing the project,” said Richard Kunz, chairman of the Planning Commission.

In fact, support for Long Canyon has been widespread. City planners received letters signed by nearly 100 residents backing the project. In a unanimous vote Sept. 5, the area’s neighborhood council recommended its approval.

And officials with the Simi Valley Unified School District, the current owner of the 1,850-acre property, have urged city planners to endorse the project. The school district is poised to receive $6.2 million for the property--a sum that has been earmarked for construction of a new elementary school.

The overwhelming support for Long Canyon can be credited in part to a carefully orchestrated public relations campaign by the developer, Santa Monica-based New Urban West Inc.

But support is also due to the fact that Long Canyon is a project that fits in with the city’s plans, say both city officials and area residents.

“I think it is going to be great,” said Theresa Berenger, a Wood Ranch resident who heads the Friends of Long Canyon, a group organized by the developer to push for the city’s approval of the project. Members of the group met with developers throughout the planning stages and have collected dozens of signatures urging city officials to approve the project.

The planned 300-acre Long Canyon Village will include a neighborhood park and will consist mostly of single-family homes on lots ranging from 4,000 square feet to five acres in size. It will be surrounded by about 1,550 acres of open space.

The blueprints that New Urban West will present to the Planning Commission on Wednesday are a modification of an existing development agreement between the city and a former Wood Ranch developer, Olympia/Roberts.

In 1993, Olympia/Roberts filed for bankruptcy, leaving parts of the 4,000-home Wood Ranch development--including a planned elementary school--unfinished. Olympia/Roberts then gave the land to the school district to compensate it for the $6.2 million it had promised for school construction.

If the current plans are approved, the school district will sell the property to New Urban West and finally get the money to build the long-delayed Wood Ranch Elementary School.

“People who bought homes here six or seven years ago were told that a school would be built,” Berenger said. “It will help the school getting built.”

The new Long Canyon development proposal also reduces the planned grading of hillsides and manages to save all the 380 mature oak trees on the property--including 150 that were slated for removal.

It also narrows the planned extension of 1st Street, the project’s major thoroughfare, from four to two lanes in some areas, thereby saving a delicate wetland.

The road, however, will be wide enough that it can be repainted to create four lanes, if traffic flow demands.

“From what I have seen in the staff report, it appears to be a project that is very compatible with the city’s plans,” Planning Commissioner Dave McCormick said. “The developer redesigned the project to be built around the oak trees.”

City planners, who have attached a handful of conditions to the project, recommend that the commission approve the proposed plans.

Only a handful of minor outstanding issues--including a disagreement over the mix of one-story and two-story units allowed in portions of the development--remain to be resolved between planners and New Urban West, said Rob Bruce, the city planner in charge of the Long Canyon project.

The plan would go before the City Council for final approval Dec. 9, and preliminary grading could start later that month. Home construction could begin as early as February, said Tom Zanic, vice president of New Urban West.

“We’re looking forward to the hearing on Wednesday,” Zanic said.