Proposal for 73 Homes Across From Oxnard Airport Backed

A controversial proposal to build a subdivision across the street from the Oxnard Airport has been endorsed by the Ventura County Assn. of Governments, but two developments proposed for property adjacent to the airport’s runway have been rejected.

VCAG, acting as the county’s Airport Land Use Commission, last week voted against allowing construction of a seven-acre shopping center at the foot of the runway, and a complex including a warehouse and airplane hangar proposed for a half-acre lot just north of the runway on Teal Club Road.

The commission concluded that the developments were not consistent with a controversial airport land use plan that it also approved Thursday.

Commission members said the shopping center, proposed by Raznick & Sons of Woodland Hills, and the hangar complex, proposed by Oxnard developer Doug Wilson, would occupy portions of the airport where state and federal guidelines, as well as the newly adopted Ventura County Airports Comprehensive Land Use Plan, discourage construction or heavy foot traffic.

‘Airport-Related’ Zoning

They also determined that the hangar complex, which would include office space for a construction firm, was not in keeping with the property’s zoning, which is confined to “airport-related” uses.

In so doing, commissioners sided with pilots and aviation-related businesses, which had objected to the developments as safety risks.

But the Airport Land Use Commission, an interim organization formed to advise local governments, broke with aviation interests to approve Blueberry Park, a 73-home residential development across West 5th Street from the airport. They said the subdivision was consistent with the plan as well as city and county zoning designations, which have set aside the land for low-density urban uses.

Pilots had maintained that occupants of Blueberry Park would be bothered by noise from the airport, and the Ventura County Airport Authority, which also advises the Oxnard City Council on development surrounding the airport, agreed. In the past, it has voted against the plan.

Blueberry Park’s developer, also Raznick & Sons, plans to ask the Airport Authority to reconsider its decision, said Richard Spicer, VCAG’s interim director.

But it is the Oxnard City Council that will ultimately determine whether any of the developments are built. The council, which will consider the developments in upcoming months, could only overrule the Airport Land Use Commission’s recommendations with the support of at least four of its five members.

Opponents of the Ventura County Airports Comprehensive Land Use Plan will get another chance to modify it when it comes up for renewal next year.

In its last meeting before disbanding to form the Ventura County Transportation Commission, VCAG decided to have the document reviewed in January, 1990, by the new agency. By then, several airport-related plans will be completed, Spicer said.

They include Camarillo’s general plan, portions of which are being reviewed; an airport general plan for the Pacific Missile Test Center at Point Mugu, which is being developed by the Navy, and a regional airport plan, which is being updated by the Southern California Assn. of Governments.