OJAI : Rezoning Threatens Inn, Owners Say

The Ojai Valley Inn and Country Club will suffer great financial harm if the city rezones its property, its owners said.

The city drafted the Maricopa Specific Plan to drastically cut commercial development allowed on 1,100 acres of public and private land surrounding Maricopa Avenue.

The plan is proposed for adoption into the city’s General Plan next year. Its stricter zoning would slash the amount of commercial building space allowed in the area from 35 million square feet under the General Plan to about 2 million square feet. It also would set new limits on lot sizes and other land use.

“It would have an extremely serious and damaging impact on the well-being of the Ojai Valley Inn,” wrote James Crown in a letter to city officials. Crown is an officer of Henry Crown & Co. of Chicago, which bought the inn in 1986.

Half the acreage in the planning area is on four parcels owned by the inn, Villanova Preparatory School, Krotona Institute of Theosophy and the Krishnamurti Foundation of America. Those lands would all be rezoned to 40-acre-minimum lots that must include 75% open space.

Crown’s letter states that the new zoning for the inn’s 237 acres would seriously jeopardize the company’s ability to meet the debt it has incurred since it spent more than $40 million renovating the 60-year-old resort and golf course.

The Ojai Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on the Maricopa plan’s environmental report on Nov. 28.