After 15 Years, Housing Project Approved in Simi Valley

Simi Valley Planning Commission has approved phase I of the 184-home Lost Canyons project, according to city records. In 2005, Developer Lost Canyons LLC first proposed to develop a total of 364 homes on 1,770 acres in Tapo and Dry canyons in a multi-phased project abutting Lost Canyon Golf Course. But contemporaneous reports peg the Lost Canyons project as dating back as early as 1992, when the city of Simi Valley approved the Whiteface Specific Plan, which included the creation of two golf courses and 364 homes on Lost Canyons Drive. Both golf courses were established. However, according to reports, they proved to be unprofitable. As a result, Lost Canyons LLC reconfigured its master scheme for the property, closing one of the courses and making the existing one private and then proposing its residential component by 2005. In 2010, amendments to Lost Canyons Golf Club at 3301 Lost Canyons Drive called for a zone change to open space to allow for residential low and residential medium density. They were filed by Lost Canyons LLC and approved by the city in 2011. The entire project gained approval in 2013, when Lost Canyons LLC secured its entitlements for 364 homes. On Sept. 2, the Planning Commission approved the project’s details, including architectural designs, floor and plot plans and landscaping. The phase I component will include three different home models at either one- or two-stories high. There is no indication yet on when phase I construction will begin or how long it should take to reach completion.