Colton Lee Communities

Start with the land.
Not the product.

Colton Lee Communities is a Southern California land development company specializing in identifying the highest and best use of land and finding the most practical path to make it happen.

We solve the entitlement and development challenges, secure approvals, and carry the engineering forward to create land that is ready to build. Our exit strategy is dictated by the project and the market. A transaction may occur at project approval, upon issuance of grading permits, or through rolling options for finished lots.

Southern California Land Development · Entitlement · Engineering · Finished Lots

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01What We Do

We see land for what it could be.

Every property is different. So is the opportunity.

We don't begin with a predetermined product. We begin with the property and determine what belongs there.

Sometimes that means greater density. Sometimes it means less. Sometimes it means recognizing that an existing approval is no longer the right answer.

A developer's role is to define that vision and determine how to make it real. For us, that means finding the most efficient path to approval, perfecting the engineering and creating value for both the landowner and the ultimate buyer.

Getting a project approved is one thing. Getting a buildable project approved is another.

02How We Look at Land

If a property has remained undeveloped, there is usually a reason.

Especially in Southern California.

The challenge may be physical, environmental, regulatory, financial, or a combination of all four. Finding it is only the beginning. The real work is determining whether there is a practical and economically viable path through it.

Development is an exercise in trade-offs, and the process is rarely linear. Solving one problem can create another. A grading solution can affect drainage. Drainage can change the site plan. The site plan affects yield, yield affects economics, and the economics may send us right back to the grading solution we started with.

Every decision has to be evaluated against the project as a whole.

An approval burdened by unreasonable development costs or unworkable conditions isn't much of an approval. Our goal is different: create an entitlement that works on paper, in the field and in the market.

03The Land Comes First

Two properties. Two very different answers.

There is no formula for highest and best use.

Approved rendering

Tapo Street Lofts

Approved retail ▶ 60 multifamily units

Tapo Street was the final undeveloped piece of a larger project that included 72 townhomes, a 36-unit senior apartment community and approximately 13,000 square feet of retail.

The housing was built. The retail wasn't.

After the commercial site sat vacant for more than a decade, it was clear that the entitlement and the market no longer aligned. We studied the zoning and the City's vision for the area and found another path.

The result was an approved 60-unit multifamily community within the existing regulatory framework, without requiring a zone change or general plan amendment.

The project was subsequently sold to a private multifamily builder.

Approved rendering

6024 Cochran Street

Approved assisted living ▶ 58 single-family homes

Cochran Street presented the opposite opportunity.

The approximately 19.6-acre property was already entitled for a 108-unit assisted-living and memory-care community. We saw a better fit: 58 detached homes, with approximately three-quarters of the property remaining as landscaped open space.

Rather than pursuing the maximum theoretical density, we designed around the property and the surrounding community.

The Simi Valley Planning Commission unanimously approved the project in July 2026.

Two properties. One moved toward greater intensity. The other toward less.

The objective wasn't more. It was better.

04Experience Without the Organization Chart

Two principals. More than two decades working together.

Gary Gorian and David Alpern have worked together since 2004, combining complementary experience across nearly every stage of land development.

Gary Gorian

Founder

Gary began his real estate career as a laborer for Dale Poe Development Corporation, a leading California developer responsible for subdivisions and large master-planned communities, including Stevenson Ranch in Los Angeles County. From those beginnings in the field, he moved into homebuilding and land development, with experience spanning the planning, development and sale of thousands of lots, along with decades of acquisitions and dispositions involving private landowners, institutional parties and national homebuilders.

Gary is a graduate of USC, where he earned his degree in Urban Planning.

David Alpern

President

David serves as President and manages the day-to-day operations of CLC. With more than two decades of real estate experience, he specializes in land acquisition, entitlements and development, bringing a technical perspective to land use, environmental review, engineering, project finance and execution. David holds a Master of Real Estate Development degree from USC.

Outside of real estate, David is a competitive Ironman triathlete and serves as Vice President of the Ventura County Sheriff's Foundation.

Together, they bring more than 50 years of land development and construction experience.

More importantly, the people evaluating the property are the people making the decisions.

No layers of departments.

Gary and David remain directly involved.

05How We Do Business

Difficult conversations belong at the beginning of a deal, not the end.

Land is complicated, and due diligence occasionally produces answers nobody wants to hear.

Experience helps us recognize many of those issues early. When we see them, we talk about them.

We would rather explain a potential problem before entering into a transaction than promise an unrealistic price and use due diligence as an opportunity to renegotiate it later.

That approach occasionally costs us a deal, and we're comfortable with that. We don't need every opportunity to work, just the right ones.

Storm drain pipe staged along a graded road

06Local Knowledge Matters

Development is local.

A municipal code can tell you what is permitted. It can't tell you everything about getting it approved.

Every jurisdiction has its own procedures, priorities and approach to decision-making. We have spent decades working with public agencies throughout Southern California, with particular depth of experience in Ventura County and surrounding markets.

Recent changes in California housing law have created new paths to approval and, in some cases, limited local discretion. We understand those tools and use them when appropriate, but our preference remains the same: work with the city and the surrounding community to bring forward a project they can support on its merits.

Both Tapo Street and Cochran Street followed that approach. We worked with city staff and listened to neighbors, making reasonable adjustments to address concerns even when the regulatory framework did not necessarily require us to do so.

Collaboration doesn't mean everyone will always agree. We are willing to compromise when it produces a better project and equally willing to be persistent when an issue matters.

We want to leave behind good projects and good relationships.

07What We Look For

The interesting properties are rarely the easy ones.

We look throughout Southern California for properties where thoughtful land planning and development expertise can create value.

That may be raw or underutilized land, a project that has stalled in the approval process, or a property burdened by an entitlement or development constraint that has prevented others from finding a viable path forward.

Residential development has historically been at the center of much of our work, but we are not limited by product type or a rigid acquisition formula.

If there is an opportunity to create meaningful value, we want to understand it.

08For Landowners

A property can be worth more than what it is today. Understanding why takes work.

For many landowners, a development property isn't simply another asset. It may have been owned for decades, inherited through a family, or represent a substantial portion of their net worth.

We respect that.

Our transactions are structured around the property and the needs of the owner. We may purchase after initial feasibility, option the property through entitlement, or consider another structure when circumstances warrant it. Timing, taxes and the owner's objectives are all part of the conversation.

There is no one-size-fits-all Colton Lee deal.

What we can promise is a straightforward discussion about the property, what we see in it, what concerns us, and what we believe it could become.

Oak grassland with an old fence line, ink drawing

Contact

Have a property or a question? Talk to us.

Whether you own land, represent a property, are interested in one of our projects, or have a question or concern about work we're doing in your community, we welcome the conversation.

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Mailing AddressColton Lee Communities, Inc.
1014 S. Westlake Blvd.
Suite 14-183
Westlake Village CA 91361

Email[email protected]