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Planners OK 652 Homes at Wood Ranch

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SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

The Planning Commission unanimously approved plans for a 652-home development on the city’s southwest boundary late Wednesday, paving the way for the construction of a long-delayed elementary school.

The project’s developer, New Urban West Inc. of Santa Monica, is now expected to purchase 1,850 acres of rolling hillsides from the Simi Valley Unified School District. The district is poised to receive more than $6 million, which it has earmarked for construction of Wood Ranch Elementary School.

“This is an outstanding project for our community,” said Theresa Berenger, president of the Friends of Long Canyon, a volunteer group organized by the developer to garner support for the project. Berenger was one of 60 members of the group who cheered the development at Wednesday’s public hearing.

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The housing development, Long Canyon Village, will be the last of four villages in the 4,000-acre Wood Ranch area. The 300-acre 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. It will be surrounded by about 1,550 acres of open space.

While Planning Commission Chairman Richard Kunz acknowledged that the panel had received one letter against the project, those who addressed the commission overwhelmingly favored building the new homes.

On Wednesday the commission had to decide whether to allow amendments to the development agreements between the city and the property’s previous owner, real estate developer Olympia/Roberts.

Commissioners agreed that the New Urban West proposal was better than the existing plans. The new proposal reduces hillside grading and saves all the mature oak trees on the property. It also reduces the width of portions of 1st Street, the project’s major access road, thereby saving a delicate wetland.

“The bottom line is that Long Canyon will be a better development under New Urban West’s plan than it would have been otherwise,” resident Jean Ruecker told the commission. But Ruecker asked the panel to attempt to get a commitment from the school district that it would actually build the school.

Interim Supt. Robert Purvis assured the audience that the district is going forward with its plans to open the 600-student school by the fall of 1998. Wood Ranch Elementary is badly needed to relieve overcrowding at nearby Madera Elementary, he said.

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The school district became the owner of the 1,850-acre property in 1993 after Olympia/Roberts filed for bankruptcy and ceded the land as compensation for $6.2 million it had promised for school construction.

The district plans to build the school on a site it owns west of Wood Ranch Parkway in Sycamore Canyon Village, one of the three existing communities in Wood Ranch.

New Urban West officials said if their project receives final approval from the City Council on Dec. 9, they plan to begin building homes at Long Canyon in February.

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