The Simi Valley City Council approved the latest changes to the housing plan at the former Lost Canyons golf club, clearing the way for the developer to start building 364 homes there.
The council voted unanimously Aug. 10 to approve a few changes to its earlier approval of the Lost Canyons project. The effect of the changes is to remove the golf course from the development plan and replace it with more open space and move some of the planned homes so they’re more tightly clustered, which also creates more open space.
The entire Lost Canyons property is about 1,800 acres. Under the new plan, about 300 acres will be developed, down from 500 acres in the previous version.
The number of homes in the plan remains the same, at 364, but in the newly
approved version, all of the homes will be located north of Lost Canyons Drive, where one of the property's two golf courses used to be. The entire southern portion of the property, as well as the other golf course, will be open space. A golf cart path will be repurposed as a hiking trail and donated to the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District.
"I appreciate the thought that has gone into this," City Council member Elaine Litster said just before the council vote. "This is a better footprint and a better use of the land."
The developer and current property owner is a company called Newport Pacific Land Co. The homes will be built and sold by Toll Brothers.
All homes will be market-rate, single-family homes. They will start at around 3,000 square feet and will probably cost between $1 million and $2 million, a Newport Pacific executive told The Star last month.
Toll Brothers plans to begin building homes next year. The first phase of homes will likely be finished about three years from now, and the second phase will take another two or three years.
Tony Biasotti is an investigative and watchdog reporter for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at tbiasotti@vcstar.com. This story was made possible by a grant from the Ventura County Community Foundation's Fund to Support Local Journalism.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Lost Canyons housing project wins final Simi Valley council vote
