Growth Plan for Oxnard Draws Fire From County : City Defends Proposal, but Plans Revisions

Oxnard officials this week defended a proposed updating of the city’s general plan against sharp criticism from county officials, who complained that it was developed with little regard for Oxnard’s neighbors.

City officials said they will revise the proposal to address several oversights. But they said they support the plan, which would guide Oxnard’s development through 2020.

“I feel comfortable with the general plan as it’s presented,” said Ralph Schumacher, president of the General Plan Advisory Committee, a 22-member citizens panel that drafted the plan over a 2 1/2-year period.

2 Developments

He attributed most of the county’s objections to two controversial developments included in the plan and set for detailed review in the future--a 330-acre residential development in Oxnard’s largely agricultural northwest corner and a marina-based development of at least 900 acres at Ormond Beach, where heavy industry, wetlands and agriculture have coexisted uneasily for years.

The county’s objections, while only advisory, are significant to the extent that they influence the county’s Local Agency Formation Commission, which must approve the annexations outlined in the plan. LAFCO Executive Officer Robert L. Braitman already has criticized numerous portions of the plan, including the northwest and Ormond Beach development proposals.

Steve Wood, a senior county planner who coordinated complaints from the county’s waste management, public works and air pollution control agencies, characterized Oxnard’s plan as the worst he has seen in his 10 years with the county. “They prepared the plan in a vacuum,” he said, citing significant omissions about the effects of Oxnard’s development on county roads, air quality and water supply. “They didn’t look at regional impacts.”

County’s General Plan

He maintained that the document failed to spell out how many new dwellings will be created in Oxnard over the next 30 years, which means that county planners cannot tell whether Oxnard’s plan conforms with Ventura County’s general plan.

Oxnard City Planner Matthew Winegar, who oversaw the committee’s efforts, denied that such information had been omitted, although he could not immediately cite the page where such figures appear and had to tally them from separate tables.

“All the information is in there,” Winegar said. “Maybe we just need to do a better job of detailing it.”

Winegar blamed the complaints on what he described as an outmoded view of Oxnard as a reckless boom town.

“People still see Oxnard as a city that makes the sort of decisions that it did 30 years ago, when Oxnard was in a race with neighboring cities to annex adjoining agricultural lands and extend its city limits,” he said.

Oxnard has about 127,000 residents. Winegar said Oxnard’s anticipated population of 187,000 in 2020 is well below previous city estimates, which were used in the county’s general plan.

Rate of Growth

And, at 1.4% annually, the rate of population growth projected in Oxnard’s plan is even slower than that of Ventura, which at 1.8% annually is generally considered to be modest, he said.

“This is a good plan,” he said.

But county officials don’t see it that way. They cited omissions such as:

* The presence of two landfills--one operating and another recently closed--within 2,000 feet of proposed development in the city’s northwest area, despite state guidelines recommending that cities note such facilities in general plans.

* The impact of proposed development on seven county roads that are gateways to Oxnard. According to a 1985-86 county study, congestion on those roads is expected to exceed acceptable levels by 2010.

* The effect that proposed development will have on air quality. The county already exceeds federal standards and is the subject of a lawsuit that will force it to meet those standards or face federal smog-reduction measures.

* The increase in water consumption as Oxnard grows.

* The noise from a regional airport proposed for the Ormond Beach area.

County officials also criticized the plan’s calculation that new development will take 1,561 acres of agricultural land out of production. Wood said that figure reflects only agricultural land that will be annexed by the city--not agricultural land within city limits that will be converted to urban uses. The additional acreage brings the total to be taken out of production to 4,577 acres, a loss that Wood said was significant.

In a document filed separately, County Agricultural Commissioner W. Earl McPhail agreed with that assessment.

‘Strongly Disagree’

“Your draft EIR does not consider the loss of agricultural land significant,” he said in a letter dated July 27. “We strongly disagree.”

He said that if all 2,900 acres of Ormond Beach were developed, as proposed by an Irvine-based developer, the county would lose nearly $100 million in agricultural revenue, or nearly 10 times the loss estimated by Oxnard’s general plan committee.

Winegar acknowledged the plan is flawed. But, he said, Oxnard officials plan to address only some of the county’s objections in a revised general plan that city staff hopes to present to Oxnard’s Planning Commission in September and to the City Council in the fall.

He said city officials plan to note the proximity of the Bailard and Coastal landfills to proposed development and to outline the anticipated impact of development on the seven county roads that are gateways to Oxnard.

Schumacher said that airport noise would be studied in specific plans for proposed developments.

Air Quality

But Oxnard’s planning staff does not plan to address air quality or water supply, Winegar said.

Water calculations are not necessary, he said, because the Metropolitan Water District, which supplies Oxnard, says it can provide enough water for a population of at least 187,000 through 2010.

Winegar said Oxnard met its obligation to the county’s air quality plan by projecting only 187,000 residents in 2020, a figure which falls short of the county plan’s projection of 217,000 by 2010..

“The county’s air quality plan is the regional plan, and it assigned population limits,” he said, “and we’re within those limits, so essentially we’ve complied.”