Official Asks LAFCO to Save Agricultural Land

Ventura County Agricultural Commissioner Earl McPhail has appealed to regional growth officials to protect the county’s dwindling farmland from urban sprawl.

Farm acreage in Ventura County has dropped from more than 120,000 acres in 1979 to 105,000 last year, a trend that must stop if agriculture is to remain viable in the county, McPhail said.

The county’s 10 cities, which jointly hold about 20,000 acres of farmland within their boundaries, should develop that land before they are allowed to annex land outside the cities, he said.

“Somewhere we have to balance the need for people who want to live here and those of the growers who want to continue farming in the county,” he said. “It’s a very delicate balance.”

McPhail made his appeal at a study session Wednesday of the Local Agency Formation Commission, which must approve all annexations, and a committee formed to advise Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Maggie Erickson Kildee on agricultural land trust.

The meeting was organized to determine the state of land-use planning in the county, said LAFCO Executive Officer Robert L. Braitman. The study session included presentations on water resources and air quality, population projections, regional government and the role of agriculture in the county’s future.

Representatives from all the county’s cities except Santa Paula attended the meeting to update the panel on their cities’ plans for growth and the state of their natural resources.

However, time ran out before the presentations were complete, and a second meeting is being arranged.

The cities represent the major source of encroachment into farmland, McPhail said, but Ventura County and the state of California also plan large purchases of agricultural land.

The county plans to build a jail on 157 acres east of Santa Paula, and the state is in the process of choosing a place to build a four-year university on at least 200 acres at any of three sites now used for agriculture.

“I think we have to be very careful to have growth where it will have the least impact on agriculture,” McPhail said.

Only Simi Valley now has an application on file with LAFCO for permission to annex a large parcel of land. The city wants to annex the 183-acre Corriganville Ranch to develop into a regional park. Simi Valley has also announced plans to annex the Jordan Ranch, owned by entertainer Bob Hope, to allow the development of 750 residences.

The Jordan Ranch project also includes a land swap, in which Hope would trade 1,100 acres of the 2,308-acre ranch to the National Park Service in exchange for 59 acres needed to provide access to the development.

Overall, planners say another 43,000 residences will be built in the fast-growing east end of the county by 2010, half again as many as exist today.

McPhail said he hopes that the developments will be designed to take as little farmland as possible.

“If we do that, we both can coexist for quite a while in the county,” McPhail said. “But it takes good planning to see that it happens.”