Under pressure from state, Simi reverses opposition to proposed 278-unit apartment complex

Under pressure from the state, the Simi Valley Planning Commission has reluctantly reversed its recommendation that the City Council deny a proposed 278-unit, four-story apartment complex strongly opposed by neighbors.

The commission voted 4-1 Wednesday night to now recommend the council approve the project, which would include 83 affordable units.

The vote came about two months after the commission unanimously agreed on Dec. 4 to recommend that the City Council reject the project.

State warns city

The reversal came after the city received a Dec. 16 letter from the state Department of Housing and Community Development warning that if the City Council denies the project, the city risks violating a number of state housing laws, including the Housing Accountability Act.

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The letter is the first sent to any city in Ventura County regarding a specific housing project, said Tressa Mattingly, a department spokeswoman. Even so, she said such letters are routine and are usually related to projects with affordable units.

“HCD is mandated to review local government actions and inactions, including housing element program implementation,” the letter to interim City Manager Brian Gabler says.

In enacting the Housing Accountability Act in 1982, the letter says, the California legislature intended “to significantly increase the approval and construction of new housing for all economic segments of California’s communities by ... effectively curbing the capability of local governments to deny, reduce the density for, or render infeasible housing developments.”

The act was reformed and made stronger in 2017.

Simi Valley, the letter notes, “has failed to accommodate its RHNA (Regional House Needs Allocation) for very low and low-income“ housing, something the project could help alleviate.

RHNA is the state-mandated process to identify the total number of housing units, by affordability level, that each jurisdiction must accommodate in its housing element.

A city’s housing element identifies and analyzes existing and projected housing needs and provides goals, policies and implementation programs for the preservation, improvement and development of housing.

“If HCD finds that a city’s act or omission does not substantially comply with state law, housing element compliance may be revoked,” by the state Attorney General suing the city, the letter warns.

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If the city’s housing element is revoked, the city would lose control of issuing any planning or building permits, Simi Valley Environmental Services Director Stratis Perros said Thursday.  

The courts would then assume that authority, he said.

Perros said the commission had no choice but to recommend that the City Council approve the project.

“State law mandates that the commission recommend approval,” he said. “The commission’s hands are tied.”

He said the commission initially recommended denying the project on public safety traffic concerns, which the developer, AMG & Associates, didn’t want to address.

Perros said he didn’t know how the City Council will vote on the project, but noted the council is “bound by the same laws“ as the commission.

Planning Commissioner John Casselberry said at Wednesday night’s meeting that “the letter from the state has limited our options, and I don’t want to waste the taxpayers’ money (defending) a lawsuit we will not win.

“I don’t believe that a lot of people understand the gravity of what losing our housing certification means,” he said. “It means a judge, not in Simi Valley, maybe not even in Ventura (County), makes decisions on what gets built” in Simi Valley.

“That is the last thing we want,” he said.

Strong community opposition

AMG & Associates, based in Encino, proposes tearing down most of the largely vacant Belwood shopping center on a 6.89-acre site at Alamo and Tapo streets in east Simi Valley and building a 278-unit, four-story apartment complex there, including a ground-level parking structure.

The project would also include a remodeled commercial retail component.

Opponents argue that the complex, first proposed in August 2016, would be too dense and out-of-character for the Texas Tract and Kadota Fig residential neighborhoods near the shopping center.

About 25 of them spoke at Wednesday night’s meeting.

“As far as I can see, we’re at a four-story building height, which is way out-of-character with Simi Valley and it’s also out-of-character with the surrounding developments,” said one of the speakers, Simi resident Mike Bliss.

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About 75 other people submitted cards in opposition to the project, Perros said. One speaker was in favor of the project, he said.

A change.org petition to the city opposing the project has collected more than 2,200 signatures, although some could potentially be duplicates from signers using different names and email addresses. The petition was started by a grass-roots group called Citizens United for Responsible Building Simi Valley.

Perros said AMG & Associates has refused to make any significant changes to the project, including lowering it to three stories or two stories, to make it more palatable to the city and community.

Planning commissioners agreed.

“I feel like this developer has taken advantage of us, doing everything possible to find a way to build a project that essentially nobody wants,” said Planning Commissioner Ken Rice.

“It’s ugly,” he said. ” ... It doesn’t belong here. It’s exactly what the people in Simi Valley don’t want.”

Commissioner Tim Hodge, who was the lone vote against recommending the City Council approve the project, said AMG & Associates could have “made it a better project that would minimize the impact to the community.”

Instead, the developer’s attitude seemed to be, “’We’re just going to build whatever we want,’” he said.

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AMG & Associates founder Alexis Gevorgian did not respond to a request for comment.

But in 2017, he said the density of the project is permitted under the city’s general plan and state law.

He said his firm is “open to any of the changes the community wants as long as we don’t lose any more units. We’ve already lost about 100 units” by lowering the proposed complex from five stories to four.

Building affordable units is part of his firm’s mission, he said.

“There’s a huge demand for it,” he said. “It’s a crisis.”

The City Council is tentatively scheduled to consider the project at its March 9 meeting, Perros said.

Mike Harris covers the east county cities of Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks, as well as transportation countywide. You can contact him at mike.harris@vcstar.com or 805-437-0323.

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