Plan Would Require More 1-Story Homes

City planners are considering new rules to ensure there will be more single-story homes in Simi Valley’s future.

The Planning Commission today is set to discuss a proposed policy that could require developers to build fewer residences with two or more stories, perhaps requiring 5% to 20% of the homes in a given project to be single story.

Since August, the city has had an unwritten policy that requires at least 10% of units in new detached housing projects be single story.

“If you had 10% of a project being built as single story, you could space them so it’s not flat rows, where it’s one two-story after another,” Mayor Bill Davis said.

Councilwoman Barbra Williamson said single-story homes are also encouraged because of their greater accessibility. “The community’s getting older and the population itself is getting older.”

During the first nine months of 1999, 15% of the homes built in Simi Valley, or 50 of 330 homes, were single story. That’s an increase over 1997 and 1998, when 101 of 1,135 new detached homes, or 9%, were single story.

The city joins Thousand Oaks in bucking a nationwide trend of building more two-story houses on small lots. The move to limit single-story homes runs contrary to state and national trends, said Dee Zinke, executive officer of the local chapter of the Building Industry Assn. of Southern California.

“An ordinance that would encourage more houses to be single-story would take up more land potentially. It is adverse to a lot of the smart-growth going on right now,” Zinke said.

Complaints about aesthetics should be blamed on poor design, not two-story buildings, she added.

Single-story homes are popular among buyers and bring more profit per square foot than two-story homes, but the high cost of land makes two-story homes a popular choice for developers.

The Planning Commission is set to meet at 7 p.m at City Council chambers, 2929 Tapo Canyon Road. The commission’s recommendation will be passed on to the council for consideration.