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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAGENDA REPORT 2001 0117 CC REG ITEM 10EMOORPARK CITY COUNCIL AGENDA REPORT ITEM l O• E • CTTY oF M OORP I%R ,- C- Nn,i i -ORNIA Counil l I-1 Zcol of - R�s�R-nr3� ACTION: ELA �►uti �-RE�,P -t Ka P1 __� may.- _}.._ - - -... - - - - - - -- TO: The Honorable City Council FROM: Wayne Loftus, Director of Community Development -� DATE: January 8, 2001 (CC meeting of January 17, 2001) SUBJECT: Consider Presentation and Discussion of "The Canyons" Specific Plan Proposed by Unocal Land and Development Company in the City of Simi Valley Adjacent to the City of Moorpark Easterly Boundary. BACKGROUND AND DISCUSSION City Council has previously been provided, under separate cover, information packages related to "The Canyons ", a major specific plan within the City of Simi Valley, contiguous to the eastern City boundary of Moorpark. However, because of changes on the City Council since the project information was first provided, it has been incorporated with this report. "The Canyons" is a 2,875 acre project which incorporates business park, light industrial, park /open space, landfill, recycling, cemetery, commercial and medium /moderate residential land uses. The specific plan incorporates the previously approved West End Specific Plan. Primary access to the site will be from the extension of Madera Road and construction of Alamos Canyon Road and its interchange with State Route 118. STAFF RECOMMENDATION Receive information and presentation from "The Canyons" representative. Attachment: Information folder - "The Canyons" prepared and provided by Project Applicant (City Council only, available for viewing in the Planning Department) . \ \MOR PRI SERV \City Share \Community Development \Everyone \City Council Agenda Reports \cc- 010117cc Present & Discuss The Canyons.doc ITEM O • E. . THE CANYONS The Canyons project encompasses approximately 2,875 acres generally located in the north -west portion of the City of Simi Valley. The general property boundaries as depicted below are as follows: the city boundary on the west; the 118 Freeway on the south; the northerly extension of Erringer Road on the east; and the City's sphere of Influence (SOI) on the north. The Canyons has historically been used for oil production and cattle ranching. The vision for The Canyons is the creation of a master planned community that includes a balanced use of residential, commercial, business park, and light industrial components consistent with the objectives of the City's General Plan and Vision 2020 Plan. In addition, one of the primary project objectives is the permanent preservation of the aesthetic beauty by incorporating large open spaces and major wetland and oak woodland areas into the project site. This preservation effort will be coordinated with active and passive recreational opportunities. Parks, trail systems, and a school site will be designed to interface with both the employment area and the residential villages. Since 1969 when the City of Simi Valley was formed, it has been anticipated that the site would be annexed into the City. Plans to annex the property into the City are consistent with the recent vote approved S.O.A.R. Initiative. Any development plans for the property will require the preparation of a Specific Plan and Environmental Impact Report (EIR) which will provide for public review and comment. Many opportunities for resident and citizen input will be provided and encouraged. The Simi Valley Landfill and Recycling Center (SVLRC) is an active municipal waste landfill owned and operated by Waste Management of California, Inc. (WMC). The landfill comprising 230 acres, abutting The Canyons and the 118 freeway, has a projected 20 year capacity. MAJOR PROJECT COMPONENTS ■ Business and Industrial Center - The focal point of The Canyons project will be a 615 - acre Business and Industrial Center extending from Alamos Canyon to Madera Road. ■ Residential Villages - Four residential villages are proposed on approximately 590 acres. These new neighborhoods will provide a needed blend of housing types, create a job to housing ratio of between 3:1 and 4:1, and fuel construction of the necessary Business/industrial Center infrastructure. School and Park dedications will be included in the community planning effort. ■ Community Cemetery - A site has also been identified for a 50 acre non - denominational cemetery. This will provide for an approximate 250 year capacity for the City of Simi Valley. ■ Open Space Preservation - Over 60% of the property will remain as open space, parks or other public use areas providing a carefully planned balance of resource preservation and public recreation opportunity. It will also provide for the appropriate land use buffer to the City of Moorpark. FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS 1. How much open space will there be? Over 60% will remain as open space or park land. Public Recreational access to most areas will be created. 2. What is the time line for the Canyons Buildout? The Canyons will be constructed over the next 15 years and will include a business /industrial center, 4 residential Villages, and a cemetery. 3. Will there be new schools? Meetings are ongoing with the Simi Valley Unified School District to insure that schools for the new residents will be met. The School District is evaluating their long -term needs and this project will be part of their planning efforts. 4. Which companies will locate in the Business /Industrial Center? It is The Canyons and the City of Simi Valley's vision that the Business /Industrial Center will draw much needed corporate headquarters /offices, high tech companies and non - polluting manufacturing and distribution facilities. Currently 65% of the residents of Simi Valley work outside of the City. This center will provide high quality opportunities for residents of the City. 5. Will there be an Environmental Impact Report? Yes, there will be an Environmental Impact Report study addressing such issues as: transportation; public health; safety and welfare; economic impact; hillside development; emergency services; etc It will be submitted to the public for review and comment and be approved by the Simi Valley City Council. 6. Will the City receive financial benefit with the development of The Canyons? The City will receive substantial dollars from sales tax, property tax, business tax and a variety of other taxes that will have a positive fiscal impact upon the city. 50 million dollars in additional yearly Expenditures within the City of Simi Valley will result from new businesses and residents according to a study done by top economic firm Taussig and Assoc. APPROXIMATE TIME LINE Preparation of Specific Plan Ad Hoc Meetings City Council Workshop Submit Draft Specific Plan City staff review of Draft Specific Plan Redraft of Specific Plan Resubmit Draft Specific Plan Environmental Impact Report (EIR) consultant contracted by City Preparation by consultant of Draft EIR City review of Draft EIR Public review period of Draft EIR Project deemed complete Planning Commission Hearing City Council Hearing June - September 2000 On going (monthly) November 2000 November 2000 November 2000 - January 2001 January 2001 February 2001 March 2001 April - June 2001 June 2001 July /August 2001 September 2001 November 2001 January 2002 *Please email or call Elaine Freeman if you would like to schedule a presentation at your group's next meeting. Development doesn't scare. Simi leaders ■ Err Amnmentalists are. happy the land may be, cleaned up; Unocal execs worry about protecting wetlands, rare plants Milo P Inemann t�� �lq ■� OUR T4Kw SINE VALLEY — The largest single development in Simi Val - li y'6 future Is proposed on land used for oil production until 1997, and no one seems to mind. Unocal Land and Devel opment Co. wants to build a massive' business park .and 'uptvar$ .of 1,900 homes in Caha,da de la Brea and Alamos Cazyonto the city's northwest Cornpany officials first approii had the dry in January and expect the approval process to. last into next year. No one, from environmental- ists-to 1be mayor, seems to con- sider its 1170 -year history as on oil field to be a major factor In that process. Mayor bill Davis said recent -' ly . that what -he's concerned 61;�out'is'what city officials have' Igng -been Interested in getting from the development: jobs. • 'AS tat' as any environmental problesixr,. there isn't any," Davis ,paid. At leatit.wban It comes to the abandoned oil wells and posm- ble oil• spillage, environmental- ist's Igree. F,rtvironmentalists are exdt- ed about the prospect of Unocal cleaning up the land for the' project, An attortey with an environmental watchdog group. that successfully pushed for more environmental rtudies for the more. Land Co.'s Parker Ranch housing develop - mott-bafd if no one builds on . Ur ocalti land. it may never get cleaned up at an, One official involved with developrtient on former oil lends Reid it bolls down to whether.or not the cleanup costs are wbrth it for Unocal. Much of the county's former oil.* fields would never get . cleaned it no one wanted to do anything whit It, geld John Buse, an attorney with the Environmental Defense Center. 'A. there wasn't developer pressure.to cleanup the site, as 114M COL"Sr of all APP47CN A photo taken by Job Sparhawk Appleton, drea 1907, shows beekeepers using smoke to sedate a hive of lives as they harvest boney at an apiary In Use Alamos Canyon area. one of many things the Unocal property has been used for. well as the necessity to cleanup the site, 1 doubt many of these would ey+ar get cleaned up," Buse said. "I don't think there would be a -need for them to be cleaned up, either.' For a company like Unocal Corp.; it really conies down to the coat of testing. and cleanup, said Everett Millais, Ventura's former community services director, wbo has dealt with oil contamination issues in the development of downtown Ventura. "It can be as great or greater than the actual value of the property. to clean it up,' Millais' said. Today, when environmental regulations are stricter than in the past, oil seepage and left- over. spills have not been the major Issue in Ventura County, Millais said. In the old days, It used to be common practice to put down a layer of oil to keep the dust down, Millais said. 7bday, old pipeline's could leak. All the same, Millais noted . that when environmental attor- neys recently battled over plans to build more than 330 homes near the beaches tn'Oxnard, it wasn't the decades of crude ad dumped there that held things up. It was a rare plant that grew on top of It WEAK OIL PRODUCTION The oil fields have bad a pal - try production history, but in recent years a skyroclteliag land value. When .Unocal .pulled its oll- producing operations out of California in 1998, it chose to hand over 2,430 acres of land it owned in Simi Valley to its wholly -owned subsidiary Uno- cal Land and Development Co. The company had hoped to repeat the success it had in otb- er parts of the county. The ccan- pony found oil in Canada de la Brea in 1909, Strathearn Rancb in December 1953, and Alamos Canyon in 1971, according to the state Department of Con- servation Division of 011, Cas and Geothermal Resources. Unocal officials have declined to release company records related to oil production on the land, but say they're focusing now on issues faced by -Any projects: accommodatingg wetlands, rare plants and aal- mals, and building community support for the huge project. That continues whit a series of community meetings In July, said Brian Kelly, vin president of Unocal Land and Develop- ment Co. Despite oil production, the -scenic arse bus been a magnet for various uses for years, from ranching and boakeaping to the Boy Scouts annual CAM- PQRBB, where 1,500 boys corn' pole against each other in 50- yard dashes and other events. Unocal officials don't expect any surprises when it comes, to oil: 'It's pretty complicated when you add' all these things, plus what individual citizen groups are interested in seeing in IV Kelly said. State officials with the Department of Fish and Come and the Department of Conser- vation Rive no reports of major spills on the property, and com- pany officials said all 26 wells are capped and covered. Building on land touched by all basically means building away from areas of natural oil seepage, and making sure that all contaminated, soil is removed during construction, Keay said. 'The additional cost is rala- tively ralnizaal,' Kelly said. By the time the last of the Wells in Canada de 1a Brea and Alamos Qwyort oil fields were capped and abandoned irk 1987, the area had produced 50,000 barrels of oil and 22,000 thou- sand cubic feet of natural gas, mostly methane mixed in with the gas, according to state records. That's a small traction of what other parts of Simi Valley, such as Marc Ranch, produced. By the end of 1998, more than 4.2 million barrels of oil — at 42 gallons each — were reported produced in the rest of the Simi oil fields. Along with that came a little mote than 1.7 million tvOts of a thousand cubic feet of natural gas, mostly methane mixed In %vith crude 09. Oil was first discovered in 1901 in Simi Valley,. In sand- stone rock formed by streams that flowed out. of the Mojave Desert more than 29 mitlioltt yeah ago, according to, 'Simi Valley: A Journey Through Time," a publication of the Simi Valley Historical Society and Museum. 7bday,' production has slowed to a trickle. Only 950 barrels were reported in all of Sirni Valley in 1999. *This article may be located on the LA Times "ourtimes" website . It is also reprinted and available on The Canyons website at www.simivalleycanyons.com 0 0 0 The Canyons PUBLIC BENEFITS Approximately 1400 acres of usable public Open Space and Parks Over 7,000 estimated new jobs ■NEW $50 million per year in additional expenditures within the City of Simi Valley by new businesses and residents • New non - denominational cemetery site dedication • A wide range of housing and new school site opportunities • Infrastructure improvements and public use sites PROJECT CONTACTS JURISDICTIONAL CITY OF SIMI VALLEY AD HOC COMMITTEE MEMBERS Mr. Paul Miller, Mayor Pro Tern Mr. Glen Becerra, City Council Member Mr. Bob Swoish, Planning Commissioner Mr. Mike McGuigan, Planning Commissioner 3855 -A Alamo Street Simi Valley, CA 93063 -2100 CITY OF SIMI VALLEY PLANNING STAFF Department of Environmental Services Mr. Sam Freed, Senior Planner 3855 -A Alamo Street Simi Valley, CA 93063 -2100 PROJECT MANAGER/OWNER THE CANYONS Mr. Brian Kelly 376 South Valencia Avenue Brea, CA 92823 TEL: 714/577 -1371 FAX: 714/577 -1717 E -Mail: bjkelly @unocal.com WEB SITE ADDRESS: www.simivalleycanVons.com PROJECT CONSULTANTS FORMA PLANNING AND DESIGN Mr. Chris Lee 17500 Red Hill Avenue Irvine CA 92614 Tel: 949/660/1900 FAX: 949/660 -9140 E -Mail: clee @formacompanies.com PSOMAS ENGINEERING Mr. Ross Barker 11444 West Olympic Boulevard, Suite 750 West Los Angeles, CA 90064 Tel: 310/954 -3700 FAX: 310/954 -3777 Email: rbarker @psomas.com URBAN STRATEGIES - COMMUNITY RELATIONS Ms. Elaine L. Freeman, Principal 2509 E. Thousand Oaks Boulevard Thousand Oaks, CA 91362 Tel: 805/494 -1336 Fax: 805/494 -7923 Email: freemanelf @aol.com TOM TOMLIN ASSOCIATES Mr. Tom Tomlin - COMMUNITY RELATIONS Principal 1801 Avenue of the Stars, Suite 1144 Los Angeles, CA 90067 -5805 Tel: 310/712 -1155 Fax: 310/712 -1161 Email: tomlinpr @aol.com W1,49-1h, 0 4 ri In a� IJOgIJIJ1�0 arty'