What you should know about the Colton-Lee Development and Talking Points for the Board of Supervisors Meeting, November 12, 2013

 

• The county general plan clearly states that a new project must be compatible with the existing community. The Colton-Lee Development is not. It is inconsistent with community character in nearly every way. Even as single family houses the proposed project will still be a separate community from the Knolls with its own HOA, street lights, sidewalks and curbs. 

• The Colton-Lee Development  will be more like a condo complex while the Knolls community is rural with animal keeping.  The style of the Colton-Lee development is urban and will only allow small pets like dogs or cats.

• The Colton-Lee Development is a high density project because all the project buildings will be on the 10 acres of the property closest to Katherine Rd.  Colton-Lee Development claims the project is not high density by using the total of 23 acres of the site to arrive at a lower density calculation. This low density claim is a deception. “On paper” the developer claims its 60 homes are on 23 acres. In the real world the project still is 60 homes on 10 acres—a 230% greater density!

• The Colton-Lee Development claims the project fits in with our community character since their project will use 2 or 3 styles of homes. Since every single home in the Knolls is different, unique, built by individuals over decades, the “multiple models” argument by the developer is another deception to claim the Colton-Lee Development meets the general plan standards. Which it does not.

• The Colton-Lee Development fails to meet the subdivision ordinance for fire safety with no actual second access.  Designating Katherine Rd “on paper” as a secondary access is a deception. Adding a foot or two of width to Katherine Rd. is not going to make anyone safer. Colton-Lee Development claims that project residents will not use Katherine Rd since they will only use the Katherine Rd to Kuehner route so that makes Katherine Rd. South a secondary access. In the real world of real people, making real human choices, this claim is also a deception.

• The Colton-Lee Development sets a precedent for allowing the subdivision of property in the county unincorporated areas into smaller and smaller lots— greatly increasing population in under-served and infrastructure poor rural areas. Since the county is unable or not rich enough to provide city-like services and city-like infrastructure, this precedent will lead to the degradation of all unincorporated county communities like the Knolls.

• The Colton-Lee Development  will add over a hundred car-trips per day to the current flow of traffic from the Knolls into Simi City through New Crest Oaks (a recent neighborhood) and by way of Christine St. (an existing residential street). The Colton-Lee Development traffic study did not analyze the existing traffic flow and the impacts of adding all those extra vehicle trips through that residential street.

• Knolls Park at the west end of Katherine will lose all but 6 parking spaces in front of the little league baseball field.  As all Knolls residents know the little league park has at least 50 car visits every weekend day and most weekday evenings. The Colton-Lee Development’s solution to the park’s loss of 44 parking spaces is to add rules to its new project HOA to allow parking inside their development for people using the park although no spaces will be designated for this purpose. In addition project residents or their guests will be required to park inside the development and not on Katherine Rd. Since there is no practical way to police compliance and county police will only investigate when it receives complaints, the developer’s parking solution is a deception. In the real world the project HOA would never tolerate 44 extra cars to park within its project nearly every day during the little league’s seasons and project guests will park wherever its convenient

• For the benefit of the Colton-Lee Development project the Ventura County Fire Department (VCFD) has degraded its guidelines for fire equipment safe streets from “40 feet wide with turnouts” to “24 feet and no turnouts”. This self-degradation of the VCFD guidelines did not happen all at once, but slowly over several years. In fact the “24 feet and no turnouts needed” only came up at the last Planning Commission hearing. Because the VCFD has diminished its regulations over the years in regards to the Colton-Lee development, Knolls residents have to wonder whether the regulations are simply for the benefit of the developer and therefore not for the safety of the Knolls residents.

• The VC Fire Dept. also maintained at the August 15th Planning Commission hearing that the VCFD will require the new project’s residents to shelter in place in order to help the existing Knolls community during a fire or similar emergency. Will the VCFD actually block Colton-Lee Development project residents from exiting out onto Katherine Rd.? The VC Fire Dept.’s call “to shelter in place” is unrealistic, possibly inhumane, and hardly enforceable. The much better and safer for-all-concerned solution would be for the VCFD to require the Colton-Lee Development to build a secondary access road over the railroad tracks for their emergency evacuations.

• The on-site impacts have been studied but the real world impacts on Katherine Rd have only been looked at in a general way or glossed over. For example, the environmental report does mention that up to 150 trees could be lost, but the report does not mention that the potential loss of so many trees with the road widening will change the look and feel of Katherine Rd. forever. The developer’s own tree expert could not recommend any construction and construction activities within 6 feet of a trunk or within 12 inches of the earth surface within the drip line of a large tree like a California Oak since such activities would disrupt the balance of the tree, compromise its health and its long term survival. A casual review of the road widening plan will reveal that the road construction will come right up to the base of many trees. Many trees will be lost, but the developer promised to replace any lost tree with 10 trees in Bell Canyon. This very cynical solution might appease the VC Planning Commission, but it cannot disguise the fact that the widening of Katherine Rd will destroy the character of our existing community. 

• Katherine Rd. widening will present drainage and run off issues. However, no engineering studies have been done on these issues. In addition the developer has provided no information how they will accommodate elevation changes in widening the road and how this will impact residents’ property and the flow of surface water which could result in potential flooding or run-off of polluted water into the creek. The developer’s contract engineer stated that they have no plans to address the road-adjacent drainage problems.

• The Katherine Rd widening will mean that the road’s shoulders will be paved and that parking will NOT allowed on the road. This will impact Katherine Road residents for sure, but it will cause the Katherine parking to overflow on to all the adjacent feeder streets—nearly all of which are narrow and cannot realistically accommodate a parking lane nor heavy fire equipment of any sort. The road widening requirement which the VC Planning Commission thinks is OK is both ludicrous and cynical because they are saying let’s make Katherine Rd safer by making all the adjacent roads unsafer.

• The “right of way”. The county requires Colton-Lee Development to obtain ALL the rights of way along Katherine Rd. Several hundred feet of property right-of-ways are still in dispute or unknown. If you are a Katherine Rd. resident and own the property in front of your home you need to come to the Board of Supervisors meeting on Nov.12th and stand up for your right of way. If your property/home is in areas of the road widening map  designated in red or orange you should be prepared to attend the BOS hearing with your property information.