The Milligan clan sold a massive Ventura County site that has been in limbo for decades to Hearthstone for $59.4 million, according to property records and a source involved in the project.
The price for the 271-acre site amounts to $219,200 per acre.
The vacant nine-parcel deal for Hitch Ranch in Moorpark, a city about 50 miles northwest of Downtown Los Angeles, includes a purchase option agreement with Lennar.
Hearthstone, an investor in residential development, will finance and complete the land development, and then sell the lots to homebuilders, including Comstock and Lennar, to erect 755 homes, said Debra Geiler, vice president of entitlements and forward planning for Comstock.
El Segundo-based development firm Comstock Homes has had control of the site via a private agreement with the Milligan family for about 10 years, Geiler said. The firm took the project through its entitlement process and then sold its interest to Hearthstone.
Now Comstock and Lennar are focused on architectural review and compliance with the specific plan, and before moving on to permitting of the housing.
Hitch Ranch doesn’t have an address, but it’s located in Moorpark, a city of roughly 36,000 people, “north of Poindexter Avenue, west of Casey Road, and extending approximately 1,700 feet to the west of Gabbert Road,” according to the Moorpark community development department’s website.
The site was once a hillside for grazing and farming. Its namesake is Archibald Hitch, whose family migrated from Tennessee in the early 1900s and farmed apricots and lemons on the site, according to project material.
Different versions of the project have been bandied about for over 30 years, according to Doug Spondello, community development director for the City of Moorpark, who reviews entitlement requests like those for Hitch Ranch.
Comstock filed its initial plans with the city in 2019, and the final environmental impact report was approved by the Moorpark City Council in June 2022.
Proposed housing types at Hitch Ranch include multifamily, smaller single-family starter homes, larger-lot single families and move-up housing. Fifteen percent of the 755 homes will be allocated for affordable housing, Spondello said.
“It’s a project that envisioned housing affordability in every category,” Geiler said.
In addition to the 755 homes, Hitch Ranch is slated to include a 6-acre public park, open space, associated roadways and infrastructure.
Hitch Ranch isn’t the only big development underway in Moorpark.
Adjacent to Hitch Ranch is developer James Rasmussen’s 68-acre North Ranch, a project slated to have 134 detached single-family homes, five 5-acre estate homesites, and 20 affordable homes.
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