Master-Planned Community Targeting First-Time Buyers By SHELLY GARCIA Senior Reporter A diminishing supply of available land has been driving homebuyers and businesses north for some time, but most of that activity has bypassed the Antelope Valley for such destinations as Sylmar, Simi Valley and Santa Clarita. Now the first master planned community to be built in the Antelope Valley since the 1980s promises to land the northern exodus firmly in the heart of the region. Empire Cos., an Ontario-based developer, has just broken ground on a 2,000-acre community in Palmdale that will eventually include 5,000 housing units for entry-level and trade-up buyers. An impressive array of merchant builders, including KB Home, Beazer Homes USA and K. Hovnanian Co. has already signed onto the project and the first of the homes should be delivered a year from now. Anaverde Ranch, located just west of Highway 14 between Elizabeth Lake Road to the north and Avenue S to the south, includes 1,400 single family homes of a variety of lot sizes and prices along with a primary school in its first phase. Subsequent phases will include about 30 acres of commercial development for grocery-anchored centers, a community center, parks and a fire station. There will be 10 distinct communities in all. “God only made so much land, and we’re well aware of what’s occurring in the San Fernando Valley and Simi Valley,” said Stuart Greene, executive vice president of Empire Land, one of several divisions of the company formed last year. Until now, developers have only tip-toed into the northern reaches of Los Angeles County, where job growth has lagged the rest of the region and the housing market has largely been limited to first-time buyers. Indeed, Anaverde is not the first recent stab at a master-planned community in the region. Former owners of Ritter Ranch, an ambitious project that was to include 7,200 homes, a golf course and miles of equestrian trails, went belly up in the mid-1990s as the real estate market in Southern California stumbled and a rash of foreclosures hit the Antelope Valley. An attempt to resurrect the project is currently tangled in lawsuits. But the job and housing market has begun to come back in the Antelope Valley. There are now about 65,100 jobs in the region, up from 48,500 in 1990, according to the Greater Antelope Valley Economic Alliance, and the median family income has risen to $63,425 in 2002 from $38,732 in 1990. At the same time, the escalating price of homes in other areas of Northern Los Angeles has locked many home buyers out of the market altogether. With the median price of homes in the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys looming above the $300,000 mark, there is nowhere for entry-level buyers to go but up literally, along Highway 14. “A year ago, 60 percent of the people buying our homes in Antelope Valley were people in the community and 40 percent were people coming from below the hills,” said Tom DiPrima, executive vice president at KB Home, which is building 400 homes in the first phase of Anaverde Ranch, more in subsequent phases. “Today, 65 percent are coming from below the hills.” Largely undeveloped With about 80 percent of the land in the Antelope Valley still undeveloped, home prices have remained low. The median home price in the region is $185,000, a far cry from the San Fernando Valley’s $343,000 and the Santa Clarita Valley’s $348,000 reported by the Southland Regional Association of Realtors. The low land prices also keep the cost of new homes well below the median resale prices in other areas. Homes in Anaverde Ranch are expected to range from the middle $100,000 level up to the $300,000 range. “We’re able to offer product to our merchant homebuilders that they’re projecting will sell in the mid-to high-100,000’s,” said Greene. “Right now, that’s not a product available anywhere in Northern L.A. County that’s detached.” KB has been building homes in Antelope Valley for a number of years, and currently has six active subdivisions. But Anaverde Ranch, executives said, presents a different level of development opportunity for the company. The size of the project and the mix of 10 different communities, each with a variety in the size and price of homes, means that each developer can build to its niche. “Builders aren’t necessarily competing against each other,” DiPrima said. The project is also located close to the 14 Freeway, the major artery in and out of the Valley. About 60,000 residents commute outside the Antelope Valley daily. “One of the things that’s made the Antelope Valley much more attractive today was the completion of the carpool lane,” said DiPrima, who also lives in the area and commutes to his offices in Valencia. “It’s much easier to commute back and forth.” The Metrolink is also fully operational now, providing access to the Santa Clarita Valley, parts of Northern San Fernando Valley, Burbank and Glendale and downtown L.A. A seven o’clock train will deposit commuters at the Santa Clarita station at 7:52 a.m. and in Union Station at 8:48 a.m.