ZONE CHANGE OK'D FOR SITE FORMER EGG CITY PROPERTY INVOLVED.

Byline: Eric Leach Staff Writer

MOORPARK - Ventura County supervisors have approved a zone change to allow transformation of what was once the world's largest egg ranch into a community of 12 custom homes.

Developers said grading could start this year and the first of the 3,000- to 4,000-square-foot custom homes completed by the spring of 2006.

``Today it looks like an abandoned army base, with industrial-sized transformers and acres of concrete pads where the chicken coops used to be,'' said Vince Daly of the Daily Owens Group of Westlake Village, which represents the developer of the property.

``This will be a dramatic change from the quasi-industrial property to a rural estate housing development.''

Judy Mikels, a member of the Ventura County Board of Supervisors who represents the Moorpark area, said the community worked with the developers to modify the massive housing project.

``This is the way it's supposed to work,'' she said. ``The developer worked with the neighbors. Overall it's a great project and it's good for the county.''

The 341-acre site north of Shekell Road and west of Grimes Canyon Road was once home to Julius Goldman's Egg City.

In the early 1970s there were more than 2 million hens laying 2 million eggs a day at Egg City, whose stench could be smelled as far away as downtown Moorpark and even Fillmore when the winds were blowing just so.

But the business collapsed after an outbreak of Newcastle disease and a lengthy labor dispute, and the site was purchased by Bakersfield-based developer Caprock in the late 1990s.

An initial proposal to build 23 homes on a smaller part of the property was rejected by the Ventura County Planning Commission last year, partly out of concerns about the housing development's impact on nearby farming operations.

The property had been zoned for 160-acre parcels, but the Ventura County Board of Supervisors approved a zone change last week that will allow Caprock to build the 12 homes on 10- and 20-acre lots.

Only 226 of the 341 acres would be developed because of concerns that septic systems might contaminate the underground Fox Canyon aquifer, officials said.

About a dozen people originally protested the plan at the Planning Commission, including representatives of three nearby gravel-mining operations.

Both growers and aggregate miners initially expressed their fears that owners of upscale homes will object to pesticide over-spray or blowing dust from their nearby operations.

But when the project was revised the Planning Commission approved the zone change unanimously in December and the Board of Supervisors approved it last week with no protests.

Eric Leach, [phone]

eric.leach(at)dailynews.com