OJAI : Panel Rejects Plan for Factory Building

A clash of aesthetic tastes between two architects led the Ojai Planning Commission to reject plans for a light manufacturing building proposed for an industrial park in the city.

An Ojai Planning Department staff report had recommended that the commission approve the project, but the panel voted 3 to 2 against it Wednesday.

“It’s not on a scale for Ojai,” Commissioner Marc Whitman said after rejecting Camarillo architect Mark Pittman’s design for a 24-foot-tall, one-story, 16,053-square-foot building on a 1.19-acre industrial-zoned parcel on Bryant Circle.

Whitman said he preferred that Pittman’s proposed building be cut down five to eight feet.

Pittman’s design, created for property owned by Barbara Wolf of Simi Valley, featured a five-foot parapet added in response to a previous commission request that the design conceal rooftop industrial fixtures.

Pittman told the commission that if he were forced to lower the roof, it would make it difficult to accommodate 14-foot-tall garage doors and other fixtures to make the building marketable for manufacturing purposes. He pointed out that earlier this year, the commission approved a 23-foot-tall building for an adjacent property.

Whitman said he was not in favor of that building either, adding that his own architecture firm had recently completed a design for a 14-foot-tall building next to the Wolf property.

Ojai Planning Department records indicate that two of the three developed parcels in the 11-parcel industrial park have buildings that are 24 feet tall.

Commission Chairwoman Marge Fay, who voted to approve Pittman’s design, said she felt that the building was appropriate.

“The point of having an industrial park was to put all the big buildings in one area,” she said. “He was far under the specifications for building height and lot coverage for that park. He fulfilled everything that was asked of him.”

Commissioner David Hirschberg, who voted against the Pittman design, said that developers from outside Ojai often “don’t quite understand what Ojai wants and what Ojai doesn’t want.

“We like to keep things in Ojai as low-key and intimate as much as we can,” he said.

Pittman said Thursday that he planned to return to the commission in about 45 days with a design that is two feet shorter.