CAMARILLO : Outlet Center Foes to Submit Petition

Opponents of a proposed factory outlet shopping center in Camarillo say they will turn in 4,000 protest signatures tonight at the first Planning Commission hearing on the project.

The 6:30 p.m. hearing will be held in the City Council chambers, located at 601 Carmen Drive. The hearing will be resumed if presentations by the city and developer, and testimony from the public are not concluded by 11 p.m.

To build the 857,000-square-foot retail and hotel center, the Sammis Co. of Irvine must first amend the city’s General Plan to change the designated land use on the 86.5-acre parcel from agriculture to commercial.

Other alternatives for the site south of the Ventura Freeway and east of Pleasant Valley Road call for a mix of retail and other uses.

A 1990 study prepared for Camarillo by Economics Research Associates favored the recruitment of a factory outlet center as a way to attract “serious shoppers” from as far as 50 miles away.

The study concluded that there is now $92 million in “sales leakage” from Camarillo to other communities because of a shortage of department stores, apparel stores, and outlets for home furnishings and appliances.

Sammis officials have said they expect to add $2.3 million in tax revenues to the city on retail sales of $215 million if the center is built as proposed.

But the massive Sammis proposal has elicited a groundswell of opposition from some residents, who marched outside City Hall last month in a demonstration complete with picket signs and protest songs.

“We expect a sellout crowd at City Hall,” said Bill Torrence, president of the Ventura County League of Homeowners. He predicted that project opponents would overflow the 238-seat council chambers.

Torrence described the battle as a grass-roots response to the increasing loss of Camarillo’s farmland, which he said has dwindled to 1,200 acres.

“People are fed up with big developers coming in here and taking our farmland,” Torrence said.

The group plans another demonstration outside City Hall before the hearing.