Ventura Bans New Housing Projects for 2 Years

The Ventura City Council has outlawed construction of new housing developments for the next two years, hardening the no-growth stance the drought has already forced upon the city.

The council voted 5 to 1 Monday to suspend the allocation of new building permits to residential developers for at least two years, saying the drought and increased population have strained Ventura’s resources.

An open-ended city moratorium on new water hookups already stands in the way of new housing developments.

Before the council vote Monday, developers still could obtain building permits with the understanding that they could begin construction once the city resumed allowing new hookups, said Deputy Mayor Don Villeneuve.

But the council vote thwarted construction of new housing by forbidding the granting of building permits for all housing developments of two or more units, including two projects that already had tentative approval, he said.

“If some big pipe full of water came down from nowhere like manna from heaven, we could say there’s no need to continue this because there’s water available,” Villeneuve said Tuesday. “But that’s . . . unrealistic.”

Developers of the existing 98-unit Weston Village apartment-condominium complex at Telegraph and Portola roads were seeking permits to add 252 units.

Weston spokesman Chuck Cohen asked the council during its meeting Monday at City Hall to exempt his company from the permit moratorium because it already has installed streets and utilities for the additional units.

And developers of Seneca Gardens at the east end of Seneca Street asked for permission to add 57 apartments to the 60 units already built there.

Steven Perlman, a spokesman for the developer, argued that the city approved a single-meter water hookup several years ago to serve all 117 units, 25% of which must be set aside for low- and moderate-income tenants.

“To not allow Seneca Gardens to be completed at this time would be economically devastating” to S. H. Bulmer, the project’s developer, Perlman said.

Despite the pleas, the council decided against exempting any projects from the permit moratorium.

City resources cannot handle more residents than are already forecast in the city’s Comprehensive Plan, Councilman Gary Tuttle said.

“Theoretically, we’re about done” with growth unless city services are expanded, Tuttle said. “It’s time to take a stand and say no.”

However, Councilman Jim Monahan, the measure’s sole opponent, said Tuesday, “I don’t think it’s fair that you allow these developers to go ahead and pay all these off-site costs . . . and then just cut them off at the knees.”

But Villeneuve said the council wanted to reserve the right to decide what new construction should be allowed once the moratoriums are lifted.

Ventura’s roads, schools and utilities cannot handle the 2,500 units of new housing that the Southern California Assn. of Governments recommends that the city build in the next five years to handle the region’s increasing population, said Everett Millais, Ventura’s director of development.

City planners underestimated how fast Ventura’s population would grow in the past two years, planning officials have said.

Ventura senior planner Mark Stephens has said that by the year 2000, Ventura’s population may exceed the 102,000 residents that its roads, schools and utilities can handle. Stephens has said the city’s public services probably can handle only 370 of the 2,563 housing units for which permits are being sought.

With moratoriums in place on water hookups and building permits, the city will allow new residences to be built only to replace those destroyed by fire or other disasters or those that are demolished in favor of more modern designs. In both cases, residences would be built only if they could be hooked up to existing water connections, officials said.