Controversial Housing Plan OKd : Ventura: The City Council approved the KNM plan to build a 150-residence development.

After a long public hearing Monday that pitted slow-growth advocates against young professionals seeking to buy their first homes, the Ventura City Council reconvened Tuesday and approved the first of three developments that will add 403 new houses to the city’s affordable housing stock.

On a 5-2 vote Tuesday evening, the council gave the preliminary go-ahead to the most controversial of three housing projects. By late Tuesday night, the council was still discussing the other two.

“This is the first step in addressing a longstanding perceived and real need for housing in the community,” Ventura Mayor Richard Francis said.

KNM Development Co. obtained permits to build 150 houses in an area bounded by Telegraph Road, Reata Avenue, the Franklin Barranca irrigation ditch and the Santa Clara River.

Affordable Communities Inc. was seeking permits to build 153 houses in an undeveloped area bounded by Cabrillo Village, Southern Pacific railroad tracks, the Santa Clara River and Sudden Barranca irrigation ditch.

Wittenberg-Livingston Inc. was seeking similar permits to build 100 houses east of Saticoy Avenue, south of the Southern Pacific railroad tracks and north of the Santa Clara River.

The Affordable Communities and Wittenberg-Livingston projects received no neighborhood opposition Monday, but the KNM project attracted an overflow crowd of more than 150, almost evenly divided between opponents and supporters, to the City Council chambers.

Opposition came from neighbors at the proposed site, who claimed that the KNM project would add to the area’s traffic problems.

“The area is flooded with children who love to play outside,” said resident Steven Phillips. “The KNM project will have a direct impact on my family.”

Although the council approved the KNM project in principle Tuesday, it sent it back to the planning staff for redesign to cut down on traffic on Reata Avenue.

Another complaint was that the project would compound the city’s water shortage. “I’m concerned that we’re scraping to save water so that more people can move into Ventura,” said resident Judee Hauer. “I say we hold on until we get through the drought.”

But other speakers, including several residents on waiting lists for the developments, urged the council to approve the projects. “I’m 33 years old and I want to start a home for my family,” said Randy Geren, who is on the waiting list for the KNM project. “Unless I get some kind of a break, my dream won’t come true.”

Low-income and affordable housing projects were the only exemptions allowed from a building moratorium imposed by the new slow-growth City Council shortly after its electoral victory last November.

All three projects consist of single-family houses, mostly three- and four-bedroom units. If approved, they would become the first non-rental units to be built under the city’s affordable housing program since 1988 and the first housing projects since the moratorium began in March.

Council members said they adopted the moratorium because the city was suffering an acute water shortage and could not afford more water hookups, but critics in the development and retail communities have repeatedly accused the council of exaggerating the water shortage and using it as a growth-control tool.

Under the city’s affordable housing program, developers must make houses affordable to people earning 110% of the area median income, which is determined by the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, said Community Development Director Everett Millais.

In Ventura, this translates into a price tag of about $140,000 for three-bedroom houses, Millais said. The projects are aimed at middle-to-moderate income earners with yearly salaries of $35,000 to $40,000, Millais said.

Prospective buyers would have to make a 10% down payment and obtain mortgages of $1,000 to $1,150, Millais said. “And I’m sure they’re going to sell right away,” he said. “There’s nothing equivalent in the single-family market.”

Buyers would not be allowed to sell their house at market rate for 30 years.

The average price of a new house in the city is about $250,000, Millais said.