As City Matures, Development Issues Get Complex

For a look at the future of development in Simi Valley, take a drive on Madera Road and across the street from the Madera Royal Plaza shopping center and in various stages of construction are the 26 professional and medical office buildings of the Woodranch Professional Center. Or go up First Street to where a multi-story office tower will rise near the Town Center mall or to Tapo and Eileen streets where The Marketplace project combines a shopping center with townhomes and a community center. The city still has some swaths of land for a last gasp of large-scale residential developments but for commercial and retail projects there will be no more the size of the Town Center coming to Simi Valley. Instead what the city will see are smaller infill projects and the redevelopment of existing commercial centers that have reached the end of their lifecycle. This is indicative of a maturing community moving through the transition period from growth mode to one of preserving and maintaining quality of life. Practically surrounded by mountains, the city cannot grow outward. The hillside performance standards restrict building there although the city council and the General Plan Advisory Committee made up of residents could loosen the standards. The city, however, has a practice to not amend those standards, said director of planning Peter Lyons. “At this stage the (committee) and the council wants to analyze growing from within and see what the numbers indicate,” Lyons said. To guide that growth the city is updating its general plan, a process that started last year and isn’t expected to finish until 2009. The plan was last updated in 1988. The planning department will study 12 areas throughout the city that are appropriate for land use changes. They include primarily residential areas, industrial and commercial areas, the Simi Valley Hospital and Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. For instance, the Tapo Street and Los Angeles overlay areas have been identified as ripe for mixed-use projects due to underutilized shopping areas, some of which have a high number of vacancies. In recent years mixed-use development have proven popular with cities as a way to put housing in formerly blighted areas, and near public transportation and jobs. The Americana at Brand lifestyle center in Glendale contains a housing component, complete with concierge service. The Collection in downtown Burbank has upscale apartments and townhomes above retail stores and restaurants. Both those projects are examples of the traditional vertical mixed use in which the living space is on the upper stories, whereas The Marketplace in Simi is a horizontal project in which the housing is behind the commercial buildings. While the horizontal approach is more conservative it brings the concern of handling parking in a separate building. When those types of projects get proposed the council and the community have to decide whether they want parking structures, Lyons said. When the real estate market improves, Simi Mayor Paul Miller expects the city will see more proposals for mixed use. The need for low cost housing for young adults and married couples is particularly strong as right now home prices are out of reach for that demographic, Miller said. “It would be nice to have housing for the kids who grow up and want to continue to live here,” Miller said. City councilmember Michelle Foster said there is a place for mixed use in the city but prefers not to see it done in the urban style of large cities. “It shouldn’t go beyond a suburban feel,” Foster said. Where the council is not thinking small is on the west edge of the city and 115 acres now owned by Waste Management. In updating the General Plan, the council asked city planners to investigate turning that land into an auto mall. By relocating the car dealership district to that parcel from land it now occupies on First Street would open up approximately 30 acres for commercial redevelopment in an area of the city that needs it. While close to the Ronald Reagan (118) Freeway, a drawback to the land is that is difficult to access, Lyons said. Need for office space The smaller infill projects also benefit the city by providing professional and medical office space. The city and neighboring Moorpark historically lacked that type of space to the point where professionals bought land and put up their own buildings. “That woke up a lot of people about the need for office space,” said Assistant City Manager Brian Gabler. The Woodranch buildings and the multi-story office on First Street are just the start of the new office space in the city. The council recently approved a 25,000-square foot medical office building on Los Angeles Avenue. As more professionals moved into the city bringing with them a higher average household income the demand rose for for-sale office space. A project such as Woodranch with unit sizes ranging from 1,716 square feet to 8,121 square feet offers flexibility to prospective buyers, said Gary Seaton, vice president and manager of the Simi Valley office of NAI Capital. As a bedroom community, the city never had the same demographics as, say, nearby Calabasas, Westlake Village and Thousand Oaks to justify a lot of office space, said Michael Slater, a senior vice president with CB Richard Ellis. That has changed. “It is now big enough to justify that type of office building,” Slater said. A housing boom is what helped Simi become big and while it is no longer a boom residential projects are in the planning stages. In Lost Canyon, a developer proposes to replace two golf courses with single family homes and villas. The environmental impact report on that project is expected to begin soon, Lyons said. North of the Town Center mall, a Seventh Day Adventist church has plans to build 125 single family homes, 40 multi-family homes, a church building, school and 100-room residential care facility for seniors. “There are still projects out there that are large scale subdivisions of various sizes and densities that have been in the planning stages for many years,” Lyons said.