Santa Paula Council to Repay Developer’s Loan

Santa Paula City Council members said Tuesday that their unanimous decision to repay $96,000 to an Orange County developer will deflect criticism that they have been swayed by the loan.

Councilman John Melton said council members are now free to make up their own minds about development on the city’s western boundaries without having their motives questioned.

“I felt it was the right thing to do,” Melton said. Melton was the only opponent of a decision last October to accept developer Harry Tancredi’s loan offer.

Tancredi agreed to lend up to $187,000 to the city of Santa Paula to finance a study on developing 500 acres of agricultural land. He has an option to build on a 30-acre parcel within the study area.

On Monday, the council decided to delay the second half of the study until a General Plan review is completed and to repay the $96,000 that financed the first half of the study. The city hasn’t accepted the other $91,000.

Some council members defended their original decision to accept Tancredi’s loan, but said they changed their minds to avoid public criticism.

“I never felt like I was for his proposal, but it’s always the public perception that counts,” Councilwoman Kay Wilson said.

Some of the more than 200 people who attended the City Council’s special meeting Monday night agreed that the decision was a good one.

“I think it deprives Mr. Tancredi of leverage that he hoped to exercise over the city and the City Council,” said Jim Procter, a leader of Concerned Citizens for Responsible Development. “I was very concerned about Mr. Tancredi playing banker for the city.”

Tancredi said the council’s decision has not killed his hopes of building 126 houses. He pointed out that officials are still awaiting the results of a General Plan review and a study that will outline what kind of housing is needed in the city.

The housing study is expected during the next two months, city Planning Director Joan Kus said.

Although some audience members lauded the decision to repay Tancredi, they criticized the results of the study that the loan had financed.

The 500 acres now taken up by citrus groves and homes eventually would be replaced by large housing tracts, stores and offices, under the study conducted by STA Inc. of Newport Beach.

STA’s plan includes constructing between 870 and 1,350 homes, a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school, a park, a commercial center and commercial businesses along California 126 in a massive project that would be built in three phases over five to 10 years.

Mayor Les Maland said the project, if approved, may take longer to complete because Santa Paula’s growth ordinance limits the number of building permits that can be issued to 124 a year.

Some members of the public greeted the proposal with applause, saying the city needs affordable housing for the poor and an influx of more people to buy from local businesses.

“We need a mixed housing stock,” said resident Jesse Ornelas, who suggested that at least a quarter of the homes built be for poor families.

But a citizens group blasted the proposal that would destroy most of the productive citrus groves west of the city.

“All I can see here is agriculture is going to be phased out of the area completely,” Procter said, adding that none of the suggestions put forward by his group were incorporated into the plan.

Melton, who voted against sending the proposal to the Planning Commission for review, said he disagreed with many elements of the plan.

“There’s nothing in that plan I see is viable,” Melton said. “You start putting that freeway commercial project in and that garbage, and we’re going to be like everyone else, like Orange County.”