Simi Group to Battle Proposed Gas Station : Development: Indian Hills residents say Shell Oil Co.’s plans would bring traffic and crime to their neighborhood.

The feisty homeowners group that fought to keep a McDonald’s restaurant and a police firing range out of its northeast Simi Valley neighborhood is now taking aim at plans for a service station and carwash.

Citizens for a Safe and Scenic Simi Valley helped derail plans for a shooting range in the Las Llajas Dam retention basin near their homes. But the group failed to keep McDonald’s from building on the northwest corner of the Simi Valley Freeway and Yosemite Avenue.

Undaunted, the group circulated more than 500 flyers during the weekend encouraging residents to oppose Shell Oil Co.’s plan to build a gas station, food mart and automated carwash next to the McDonald’s. Shell’s plan will be reviewed tonight by the Neighborhood Council, an advisory panel, and on Wednesday night by the Simi Valley Planning Commission.

“We’ll be in attendance at both meetings,” said Niki Munoz, a spokeswoman for the neighborhood activists. “We’ve become quite educated in how we approach the city. We’ve learned a lot of lessons.”

Her group, which draws much of its support from the Indian Hills housing tracts, has argued that the McDonald’s and the proposed Shell station will scar the scenic hills next to the freeway and bring traffic and crime to the neighborhood.

The group has also asserted that a fast-food restaurant and a gas station, both promoted by a 25-foot-tall freeway sign, will provide a poor first impression of Simi Valley for westbound motorists as they enter the city.

Nevertheless, the Planning Commission in December approved the McDonald’s, saying it complied with city rules. In March, the City Council deadlocked 2 to 2 on the project, allowing the commission’s approval to stand.

The restaurant has not been built yet, however, and neighborhood opponents hope their challenge to the service station, which would share a driveway with McDonald’s, will undermine the entire project.

“Hopefully, we can send a message to McDonald’s that they are unwelcome at that site,” Munoz said. “Maybe we can make it economically unfeasible to build without a partner to help pay for the improvements.”

The Neighborhood Council has previously rejected plans for a service station at the site, so Munoz said her group will try to stir up a larger turnout at the Planning Commission meeting.

“We’re encouraging bodies to be there,” Munoz said. “I’d be ecstatic if we packed the room. But it is the second to last week in August. It seems like everybody’s going on vacation.”

The group faces other obstacles, including the city planning staff’s recommendation that the Shell project be approved. The staff has concluded that the station will not violate city development rules or create excessive traffic or noise problems in the nearby neighborhoods.

Dug Smith, Shell Oil’s area real-estate representative, said he will try to persuade residents and the Planning Commission that the station should be approved.

“Something is going to go there,” he said. “The city has dictated that it’s a commercial piece of ground. To have two major corporations who are as image-conscious as McDonald’s and Shell--I don’t think you can do any better than that.”

He said the station will be set up to discourage crime. It will have no public telephones, video games or magazine racks, and loitering will not be allowed, Smith said.

He also denied assertions that the station’s food market will create litter or traffic problems in nearby neighborhoods. “If somebody comes into our store, they’re usually just buying a cold drink or a snack and then getting back on the road,” Smith said. “That’s what we want.”