DEVELOPERS REDESIGNING BIG SKY PROJECT.

Byline: Jesse Hiestand Daily News Staff Writer

Developers of the proposed Big Sky Country Club have won city approval to redesign the approved project and add a resort hotel, but city officials are concerned with a proposal to use open space for sprawling estate home lots.

The Simi Valley City Council voted 5-0 Monday to consider these changes to the city's General Plan and the Whiteface Specific Plan. The redesign should be submitted in about a month, said Big Sky's executive vice president, Michael Kerney.

But final approval of the development in Dry and Tapo canyons is far from certain.

Council members have said they want more information about the proposed changes, and the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District opposes any effort to privatize the nearly 1,200 acres of proposed public open space.

``If it's private it's always susceptible to more development,'' said Ed Hayduk, planning and development administrator for the park district. ``It's a recognized, designated wildlife corridor and a lot of environmental study went into that original specific plan, not only in terms of providing public open space but ensuring that the wildlife have access to corridors so they can travel.''

Hayduk and others said a compromise is the likely outcome to the open space within the Big Sky development, which would sit beneath the picturesque Whiteface cliffs in north Simi Valley.

The developers, a limited partnership of New Mexico-based Landmark National and Japanese developer Mirafuji, recently suggested the project be scaled back from 364 homes to fewer than 100 - with 87 homes on rural lots and 12 more on 947 acres of ``private'' open space.

That would leave the park district with a 15-acre salt marsh and none of the 1,154 acres of open space that was to be set aside when the City Council approved the project in 1992.

Council members were more receptive Monday to the idea of adding an 18-acre resort hotel, said Senior City Planner Sam Freed. It would be a first in Simi Valley and complement the championship golf course proposed for Tapo Canyon.

``It seems to be a use that would be very compatible with the predominantly recreational and open space aspect of the project,'' he said.

But Freed said he is concerned about the plan to make the open space private, in large part because of its possible impact on wildlife.

Kerney has said fewer homes would reduce the project's overall density and limit the amount of hillside grading. He said the remaining 1,200 or so acres of hills and mountains, if privately owned, still would appear to be open space because they are too rugged to be feasibly developed.

In lieu of public open space, the developers propose to extend a trail from Madera Road to the base of Whiteface, which would give the public access to a view across Ventura County to the ocean.