COUNTYWIDE : Board to Consider Plan Amendments

The Board of Supervisors will consider Tuesday whether to allow several parties to proceed with their applications for proposed amendments to the county’s General Plan.

The requests include plans by a Los Angeles developer to build 138 houses in the Santa Rosa Valley greenbelt and one from the Ojai Foundation to build a parking lot in land zoned for rural use. In exchange, the foundation would designate 14.4 acres as open space.

Supervisors review General Plan amendment requests twice a year to weed out applications that are inconsistent with the board’s policies. The procedure, adopted in 1981, allows only selected requests to proceed through a full evaluation and public hearing process that can sometimes take up to three years, said Joseph Eisenhunt, a county Planning Department spokesman.

The General Plan specifies various land-use goals, policies and programs set by the Board of Supervisors.

Marlborough Development Corp. is seeking to develop a 63-acre agricultural parcel east of Conejo Creek and northwest of Camarillo Springs Road on property zoned open space. The development of 138 single-family houses on 20,000-square-foot lots would require an urban designation, Eisenhunt said.

The Camarillo City Council and the Local Agency Formation Commission have opposed the proposal, he said.

The Ojai Foundation, which runs a children’s camp near California 150 and Old Walnut Road in Ojai, is requesting an amendment that would allow it to exchange land-use designations on parts of its property, resulting in an increase of 3.5 acres of open space.

The exchange would allow the foundation to expand its parking facilities. Since the site proposed for parking is designated for rural use, which limits construction, the foundation has offered a 14.4-acre rural area elsewhere as open space, Eisenhunt said.