Planners OK Homes for Old Ranch Site

A proposed gated community of 21 estate-sized homes on the old McCrea Ranch site has been approved by the Planning Commission.

When completed, the development will cover 57 acres and extend toward the city’s northernmost border.

The Monday vote ends eight months of negotiations between the city and the developer, JMF Enterprises. In April, the commission criticized the proposed development as too large for the rural area, which is at the edge of the Santa Rosa Valley. The land, between Moorpark and Santa Rosa roads, is zoned for rural-agricultural use.

For the redesign, the developer reduced the number of homes from 26 to 21, and the approved plans will save a grove of pepper trees lining Moorpark Road. The project will also include an equestrian element not featured in the first blueprint and designate 23 acres as undeveloped open space, more than 17 acres of which will be dedicated to the public through the Conejo Open Space Conservation Agency.

Such features, city officials said, make the development “consistent with the intent and purpose of the underlying rural-agricultural zone.” The commission did not rezone the property to residential, which would have allowed development of as many as 114 homes on the tract.

Planning Commissioner Dave Anderson cast the lone dissenting vote.

“I honestly believe they did a wonderful job to bring forward what will be a wonderful community,” Anderson said. “It’s just that the community would be wonderful somewhere else. I couldn’t get past the fact that I didn’t believe 21 homes belonged there.”