Ventura Keys Group Sues to Block Fee Plan

A group of 66 Ventura Keys homeowners sued the city of Ventura in Superior Court on Tuesday, seeking to block a plan to charge them each $1,680 a year to dredge silt out of their back-yard waterways.

The homeowners in the luxury waterfront development filed the suit in an attempt to overturn the Porto Bello Maintenance District, which the City Council re-established Sept. 24 by a 6-1 vote. The action was taken over the raucous objections of Keys residents at a two-day hearing.

Many of the 299 homeowners who live in the Keys area had vowed to sue after that decision, and council members said Tuesday that they were not surprised to see the threat carried out.

The homeowners probably will use the suit as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the city to get a dredging plan that is more pleasing to them, Councilman Gary B. Tuttle said.

“I think it certainly would be nice to have had negotiations and an end to the whole thing without a lawsuit,” said Tuttle, who had voted to approve the dredging assessment district on condition that negotiations continue between the homeowners and the city.

“But before, they had nothing to negotiate with,” he said. “Now they can offer the city to just drop the lawsuit.”

The city has long argued that Keys homeowners are bound to pay for the dredging by a 1964 agreement that developer John Klugh signed establishing the Porto Bello Maintenance District. The agreement allowed the Keys to be built on condition that homeowners each pay about $30 annually for dredging.

That agreement was partly invalidated in 1978, when the passage of Proposition 13 severely limited such taxation.

The Keys’ homeowners’ suit contends that the proposed $1,680 fee far outstrips the district’s initial $30 annual fee.

The suit also says that under the agreement Ventura owns the rock-lined system of channels adjoining the luxury homes’ private docks. And it contends that for 18 years, the city has neglected its responsibility to keep those waterways clear of silt and debris.

The homeowners believe that the assessment district is simply unfair and was improperly set up, said their attorney, Terry Bird.

“They have a right to have their streets cleaned up just like any other citizen in the city of Ventura,” Bird said.

“That’s patently absurd,” Deputy Mayor Donald Villeneuve said.

Villeneuve said he agrees with Mayor Richard Francis’ observation. Francis said, “You get to park your car in front of your house. But you can’t build a carport over it and deny others access to it.”

The homeowners’ suit contends that the public benefits more from the Keys channels than do the homeowners because the waterways are part of the city-owned drainage system. As such, the public should bear most of the cost, the suit contends.

But Villeneuve replied, “I’ve never seen any argument that really provides any sound basis that the public use is so great that they should share a major part of the cost. The benefits are disproportionately in favor of the property owners down there.”

City Manager John Baker said of the assessment district: “We were very careful when we set it up in following the state law in terms of what is required to do such a district.”

As for the homeowners’ charge that the assessment is unfair, Baker said, “There’s a difference of opinion, and hopefully we will be able to jointly work out that difference without having to go through an entire litigation to come to a conclusion.”