COUNTYWIDE : County Issue Population Slowdown a Good Thing?

Ventura County’s estimated population grew by 1.9% last year, the slowest annual increase since 1981. The below-average rate has disturbed some people, who believe the county needs growth for a healthy economy. Some others welcomed the slowdown, saying it means relief in congestion, pollution and the cost of housing.

Scott Weiss

Chairman, Citizens to Protect Oxnard

“If the statistics are correct, that would be good news, but only if it becomes a long-term trend. It certainly isn’t apparent, though.

Traffic congestion seems to be getting

worse all the time. The air quality is the fourth-worst in the state and probably contributes to many respiratory and other diseases.

I’ve lived in the county for 30 years and would’ve liked to have seen the growth slowed years ago. I hate to see it get any worse. The city of Oxnard seems bent on growth. It appears that some of the City Council members feel that growth is the answer to everything, and yet the city is in a financial crisis.

Hopefully, there will be more slow-growth candidates elected at the city and county levels as in Ventura. I’m hopeful people will realize that they have to get involved to prevent Ventura County from becoming another San Fernando Valley.”

Lynn Jacobs

President, Affordable Communities Inc.

“Ido feel relief that the population has slowed somewhat, so that we can catch up with our infrastructure needs.

Contrary to popular belief, we’re not receiving an influx of people from outside

the community.

At least half of the growth is a natural increase caused from births over deaths. Depending on whose figures you use, births over deaths in Ventura County equals 6,000 to 7,000, which is about 1% of the population increase.

I think slower growth is from extremely high housing costs combined with the lack of new businesses providing jobs. I think it’s natural that growth would reduce. My mission is to build homes for people who are already here and to take care of our families and people who were born here and are being forced from the area.

Besides, population growth is not a big factor for housing. We probably ought to look at a comparison between population and housing starts to see if those two figures jibe, to see if we’re producing enough housing for the increase in population.”

Rex Laird

Executive director, Ventura County Farm Bureau “The population increase is very much like the weather. Everybody likes to talk about it, but there’s not much you can do about it.

We in agriculture have virtually no say as

to what happens, because we’re only 2.5% of the population, and we’re in the rural areas, which gives us almost no vote as to who’s elected to city councils.

Besides, there’s no difference between population increase and growth.

With growth, you have traffic congestion and land consumption. However, population increase will continue because politicians have no constitutional authority to determine how many children you have.

Politicians delude themselves into thinking they can control development. What they’re trying to sell is that they can return it to what it was, but 40% of the population increase is internal, and until they come up with a methodology to make people born here move away, they can’t do it.”

Todd Collart

Ventura City Councilman “I’m pleased that the rate is what it is and not higher, because any more people moving here would only exacerbate problems we already have.

In Ventura, that’s traffic and water

specifically, and in general the demand on local services as well as the maintenance and continued support of the infrastructure of the local services.

With more people, those services will deteriorate more quickly and we won’t be allowed to expand what we have.

I would not have guessed there’d be such a decline from previous years. The reasons for the decline? I can only speculate. I would suggest that interest rates and building moratoriums are to blame. Maybe the quality of life in parts of Ventura County are not viewed as good as they used to be, and people are looking elsewhere.

We have our traffic problems and poor air quality in the county. So these may be additional explanations as to the dip in the increase.

But as far as I can tell, people are still chomping at the bit to build here.”

Nancy Williams

Executive director, Ventura County Economic Development Assn.

“If we’ve only grown by 1.9%, that means the business vitality is sluggish. The problem is that we want to protect what we have in terms of quality of life, but we also need to keep the economy vital and strong.

The slow-growth rate is pricing out the middle-income person and the young professionals who can’t afford to live here. Businesses are finding that they have to pay higher and higher costs for poorer and poorer quality employees, and it’s affecting their bottom line.

They’re having to go beyond our county borders for young professional employees, and that just contributes to the traffic problem, as those workers commute here.

I think people are still moving here, though, but because of the high cost of buying a house they’re doubling up in homes. That impacts a lot of things like traffic and the school systems.

Whether the growth rate is good or bad, it might be looked at as good because it would give us time to support the infrastructure and allow for complete build-out of existing residential and commercial areas.”