LA CONCHITA : Ranch Owners Reject Housing Proposal

The owners of troubled La Conchita Ranch have shot down the idea of converting the 700-acre ranch near the site of February’s devastating landslide into a housing development of mini-ranches, a spokesman said Thursday.

A consortium of Fillmore and Santa Paula businessmen called the Heritage Land Corp. had been looking into the possibility of marketing La Conchita Ranch to developers, but the ranch’s owners nixed it for several reasons.

“They may be looking at it, but I don’t think the owners are,” said Wilbur Layman, attorney for La Conchita Ranch Corp.

“There’s three things we don’t know the answer to” regarding the unstable hillside that destroyed nine houses and damaged several more, Layman said. “We don’t know whether we can mitigate (the landslide), we don’t know what the cost to mitigate it would be if we do, and we don’t even know what the cost would be to find out if we could.”

Also, talk of lawsuits against the ranch by landslide victims makes it unrealistic for the ranch owners to expect they would get a decent price for the cliff-top property, Layman said.

As recently as last month, Heritage partner Don Mallas asked the ranch for permission to seek county approval to allow some of the 410 acres of avocado and lemon trees to be replaced with houses, Layman said. But the ranch refused, he said.

Mallas could not be reached for comment Thursday. But his partner, Santa Paula rancher Alan Teague, confirmed that Heritage had been studying the idea of marketing the ranch.

But the third partner, Fillmore attorney John Scoles, said that after the landslide, “We’re going to have to reconsider our marketing plan.”

There are no concrete proposals yet, he said.

“We’re working on a plan to sell the property, and that’s it. Anything else would be pure speculation at this time,” Scoles added. “We’ve had parties look at the property. It’s an attractive property. But to say they’re in a position to buy is a bit much.”