Camarillo Seeks Halt to Builders’ 15 Projects : Growth: City officials want county planners to stop further development in the Santa Rosa Valley. They say the plans violate the greenbelt agreement.

The city of Camarillo is headed for a possible showdown with county planners over 15 proposed new housing developments in the burgeoning Santa Rosa Valley that Camarillo officials say could become the virtual equivalent of a new city.

The Camarillo City Council is urging the county to stop all further development in the neighboring valley to the east, where about 2,500 people now live in luxury houses on one-acre lots.

The newest proposals from a group of 15 developers to build houses on 463 acres of agricultural land and open space violate the county’s greenbelt agreement and development guidelines limiting growth to city areas, Camarillo officials said.

The estimated 1,000 residents that the developments will bring will add to the burden of already crowded schools in the area and create more traffic than Santa Rosa Road can handle, City Council members charged Wednesday. Residents use Santa Rosa Road to travel east through Camarillo to the Ventura Freeway.

“We’re not just doing step-out development here, folks; we’re creating a new city,” said Councilwoman Sandi Bush. “The Santa Rosa Valley already has a population that is larger than Ojai and only about 3,000 people less than when the city of Camarillo incorporated in 1964.”

The council voted unanimously Wednesday to urge the county to stop building in the Santa Rosa Valley and deny requests for an amendment to the county general plan to allow one of the proposed developments.

But the city, which has grown rapidly at its east end, has contributed to many of the problems itself, said Bruce Smith, general plan section manager of the County Planning Department.

“It would be great if the city of Camarillo was as strict with its own development as it is with this particular plan,” Smith said. The county has no intention of creating a new city in the Santa Rosa Valley, he said. Including the proposed projects, the maximum population of the Santa Rosa Valley is about 5,600 people with about 1,650 houses, Smith said.

Nine property owners of the 332-acre Caston Trust property south of Santa Rosa Road propose to divide the land into 278 one-acre lots for houses. The area is now zoned for agriculture or open space, with minimum lot sizes ranging from 10 to 40 acres.

Eighty-six of the 332 acres are part of a greenbelt area that the county and city have jointly agreed to leave as a buffer between cities.

The county must amend its general plan to approve the Caston Trust proposals.

Another six property owners want to build houses on 50 one-acre lots north of Santa Rosa Road. That area is already zoned for houses and requires no plan amendments.

The county staff has not yet decided whether to recommend approval of the proposals. Both the County Planning Commission and the County Board of Supervisors will hold public hearings before supervisors decide on the proposals in late November, planner Dan Price said.

Camarillo officials have already made up their minds.

“It’s difficult enough to have orderly development within the cities, let alone this kind of leapfrog development,” said Councilman David Smith, referring to the increase of development outside the boundaries of established cities.

“It’s a slow march right up to the city limits,” Bush said.