Home Ranch housing a big seller

Deirdre Newman

Two of Standard Pacific’s housing communities at Home Ranch are close

to selling out and have earned kudos for their designs.

The Ivy, a collection of 60 single-family homes, and the Laurel, a

group of 83 townhomes, both received an award last month from the

Costa Mesa Planning Commission for design excellence.

Also last month, the Laurel earned a Major Achievement in

Marketing Excellence award from the Sales and Marketing Council of

the Business Industry Assn. The specific award it earned is the Urban

Attached Community of the Year.

The award is based on the design of such things as the floor plan,

the signs and the brochure, said Dana Bieber, project manager for

Standard Pacific.

The attention reflects the company’s effort to create an idyllic

environment in the midst of an urban setting, Bieber said.

“One of the things we try to do really hard around here is

creating this little oasis, so when you go through the gates of the

community, you really forget you’re in the middle of offices,” Bieber

said. “You feel like you’re in the middle of a residential

neighborhood.”

The recognition for the design of the communities is paralleled by

the enthusiasm that homeowners have displayed in gobbling up the

houses, Bieber said. The Ivy models, which started selling in the

high $600,000s and ended in the low $800,000s, opened in early

November. All of them are sold except for the three models. The

Laurel models, which started in the high $400,000s and increased to

the high $500,000s, opened up around the same time. All but six have

sold.

Former Mayor Sandra Genis, who pushed for more housing at Home

Ranch, said she doesn’t consider the housing to be affordable, but

that’s not a bad thing for the city.

“When you see a high-end housing city say, ‘We don’t want anything

but high-end,’ that’s not really fair,” Genis said. “But when you

have a mixed community [like Costa Mesa], especially to keep the

community going, because someone has to provide the revenue, then

it’s good to have some high-end housing.”

Genis said typically, a house needs to be priced at about $500,000

to break even in order to pay for services like police and fire.

“With higher-end [housing], we not only break even, but we make a

little,” Genis said. “That’s good for the budget. If you expect the

city to have all low-end housing that’s not fair, because who’s going

to run the city?”

* DEIRDRE NEWMAN covers Costa Mesa. She may be reached at (949)

574-4221 or by e-mail at [email protected].