Simi Council Fights SOAR With SOAR

Simi Valley council members are gearing up to fight a ballot measure that would severely restrict the city’s expansion plans for two decades.

The five-member council signaled its intention this week to place a competing measure on the November ballot that would reaffirm the growth boundaries enacted by voters four years ago.

The move comes weeks after Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources, the group that enlisted city support for the 1998 boundaries, announced a new move to further rein in development.

Diane Bentz, co-leader of Simi Valley SOAR, said Tuesday she believes the city wants to confuse voters and dilute support for the tighter restrictions. “We already know that voters want what they have. There’s no need to reconfirm that,” she said. “What we’re doing is seeing whether they want more.”

But Mayor Bill Davis said the slow-growth issue has become so politicized that unless there is a competing plan, voters may automatically support new restrictions, without considering the implications.

“They’ve moved way beyond what was intended by the public when they started with this,” Davis said of SOAR’s latest plan. “They’re not saving agriculture or open space. Show me where we’re growing crops in Simi Valley. They’re the ones who are doing the confusion.”

Davis asserted that the tighter restrictions could force developers blocked from building homes to turn their property into landfills. He also warned of construction of high-rise apartments to accommodate growth. SOAR leaders dispute those claims, saying there is sufficient land within city limits for new businesses and moderate-density housing.

Council members, most of whom are conservative Republicans with business backgrounds, feel betrayed by SOAR activists, Davis said. Four years ago, council members endorsed establishing growth boundaries expressly because SOAR leaders agreed to allow for a handful of developments that city officials wanted. Voters overwhelmingly backed the compromise boundaries negotiated between city officials and slow-growth activists.

SOAR’s latest plan, which it hopes to place before voters this fall, would clip Alamos and Brea canyons and Marr and Runkle Canyon ranches from the city’s expansion zone. City leaders say that might cripple developer Unocal’s plans to build The Canyons northwest of the city.

The Unocal project would comprise 1,600 homes and a business park the city had identified as a local center of job growth over the next 20 years. SOAR leaders say the project would not create a jobs-to-housing balance or provide affordable housing, as some backers suggest, but would merely add to sprawl and traffic congestion.

At Monday night’s meeting, the council voted unanimously to direct city staff to draw up an alternative to SOAR’s new proposal. The alternative is expected to establish the same, or almost exactly the same, boundaries that are now in place--boundaries that would permit the Unocal project to proceed. Council members would need to vote formally to then place the staff’s proposed language on the ballot, a decision expected by June.