OJAI : Planners Rebuff Builder’s Park Offer

Ojai planners rebuffed the offer of a city park from a developer Wednesday despite threats that his 31-acre meadow might be fenced to keep out schoolchildren, equestrians and bird-watchers.

Planning commissioners spoke 5 to 1 against developer Howard M. Palmer’s offer to donate 11 acres of his meadow for a public park near Nordhoff High School. Palmer said the park’s benefits could offset environmental impacts of his proposed 26-lot subdivision on the remaining 20 acres.

“A project of this size just doesn’t fly in Ojai anymore,” Commission Chairman Lynn McConnell said.

Palmer paid a $50 hearing fee to test the commission’s views before submitting the plan. He asked the City Council for a similar review on Jan. 22.

About 30 residents attended the hearing to oppose the subdivision. Several urged Palmer to donate the entire parcel to a nature conservancy.

Mark Finlinson of Salt Lake City, Palmer’s loan consultant with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., said he was puzzled by the opposition.

“Everyone is forgetting that somebody is making mortgage payments on that land,” he said. Palmer said he has been stalling foreclosure on the land for two years.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized the assets of Palmer’s lender, Mountain West Savings and Loan, two years ago.

If the subdivision is not approved, Finlinson said the government will call in Palmer’s loan, put up a big, chain-link fence and no-trespassing signs and sell the land to another developer.