Knolls Rental Project Gets a 1st OK

Despite the protests of more than 250 residents, a sharply divided Ventura County Board of Supervisors granted initial approval Tuesday to a proposed apartment complex near the Simi Valley foothills.

After a three-hour hearing, the board voted 3 to 2 to allow builder Gary Gorian, president of Thousand Oaks-based Colton Lee Communities, to proceed with a formal application for his development project in Santa Susana Knolls.

But supervisors told Gorian he would have to significantly revise his initial proposal, which called for 189 apartment units on 25 acres of unincorporated land. The tract is at the eastern end of Simi Valley, just outside the city limits.

To win final approval, the developer must come back with a plan that is less dense and more acceptable to residents of surrounding neighborhoods, said Supervisor Judy Mikels, whose district includes the project.

“I would like to see it be as compatible as possible with the surrounding community,” Mikels said.

But dozens of residents who turned out to oppose the project indicated they had little desire to work with the developer. Instead, they set their sights on Mikels, promising to oust the veteran supervisor from office.

Many in the crowd wore neon-green stickers saying: “I will support a recall if needed.”

“I don’t like to be threatened,” Mikels said, anticipating the crowd’s ire just before her yes vote. “I do the very best job I can

Santa Susana Knolls resident Michael Selvaggio said Mikels brought the possibility of a recall vote on herself. Instead of asking Gorian to submit a revised project, the supervisors should have told him what they considered permissible, Selvaggio said.

“Judy Mikels can call it a threat, but we call it democracy,” said Selvaggio, 23, a political consultant. “We got 1,700 signatures to stop this project without even trying. We can get a lot more.”

He has not investigated how many signatures he would need, Selvaggio said, but believes it would approach 10,000.

Opponents probably would file a recall petition after meeting next week to work out the details, he said.

Supervisors listened to arguments for and against the project for nearly three hours before making their decision. Opponents, wearing red shirts, far outnumbered supporters.

Many of the project’s critics said they supported at least in concept Gorian’s proposal, which would have set aside several of the 189 units for residents with low incomes and several for foster children who have reached adulthood.

But they argued that a high-density apartment building is incompatible with the surrounding rural Knolls community.

The unincorporated neighborhood, immediately southeast of Simi Valley’s city limits, is a collection of aging homes on large lots in an area with no sidewalks, many horse corrals and the occasional strolling peacock, residents said.

“Putting an apartment building in the Knolls is like putting a gas station in the middle of the Getty,” said Larry Wilkin, who lives in another nearby development. “It doesn’t fit.”

A handful of supporters were just as passionate, telling supervisors that projects such as Gorian’s were sorely needed to alleviate a housing crunch that has sent rental prices soaring.

Several high school students told supervisors they were worried they would have no place to live once they left their parents’ houses.

James Trester, a plumber, said he has lived in Simi Valley since the 1970s and sees no problem with the proposal.

“The fact is, I’m just a working guy, and where they want to put the apartments is a good place,” he said.

Supervisors John Flynn and Kathy Long joined Mikels in allowing Gorian to at least move forward with the next phase.

His revised proposal will again be reviewed by supervisors and several other county planners and regulators before it can be approved.

“Because of the housing needs we have in this county, we must look at it,” Long said.

Voting against the project, Supervisor Linda Parks said she agreed with critics who said the development was too much of a contrast with the Knolls neighborhood.

The other dissenter, board Chairman Steve Bennett, said he generally supports higher-density developments.

But Gorian’s proposal is “fatally flawed,” he said, because it should be annexed by the city of Simi Valley.

Cities do a better job of providing services such as sewer, water and electricity than the county does, Bennett said.