Planners OK Proposed RV Resort : Port Hueneme: State agencies and the council must still review the plan. It would be created from harbor dredgings.

After a divisive 4 1/2-hour public hearing, the Port Hueneme Planning Commission unanimously approved a proposed oceanfront RV park late Wednesday.

“The city deserves a chance to develop to the full potential, and I think this will do very well,” commission Chairwoman Cleone M. Spencer said after voting to approve the $2.3-million project.

The hearing was the first at which a large number of residents turned out to back the project, which has been fiercely opposed by beach-area homeowners since City Manager Richard Velthoen introduced the idea 30 months ago.

The 10-acre Hueneme Beach site, created from harbor dredgings, would contain a 143-space recreational vehicle resort with a pool, convenience store, water and electrical hookups and beachfront views.

If the project is built, the City Council has promised to rescind the so-called view tax that it imposed last year. The park plan is still subject to approval by the City Council--where it has strong support--and the state Lands Commission and California Coastal Commission, where its fate is less certain.

“I lived here when (Port Hueneme) was nothing but a slum-type military town,” said Brenda Klopstein, who recommended that the project be approved as another step in the city’s redevelopment efforts.

But the hearing, which drew 200 people, suggested growing animosity between beach property owners who oppose the project, and retirees and others who live inland and like the resort’s potential revenue.

Supporters carried signs stating “Out-of-Town Manipulators Go Home” and “Local Control for Port Hueneme.” The signs were an apparent knock against beach property owners--many of whom are Los Angeles residents who use their condominiums as rentals or weekend getaways.

Chris Pulos, a Surfside Village homeowner and a leader of park opponents, blamed city officials for creating the divisiveness by threatening budget cuts if the park plan is rejected.

“The fact that I didn’t live here when there were whorehouses in this city 40 years ago does not make me an outsider,” Pulos said. “But they’ve called us everything from carpetbaggers and interlopers to freeloaders and the dregs of society.”

City Council members who took part in the meeting said Pulos himself had done much to inflame passions. They said he drove his RV through town last year with a professionally made sign that read: “Dump your tanks on the City Council.”

“People don’t like it when the shoe’s on the other foot,” Mayor Orvene Carpenter said after the hearing.

The hearing was marked by several strained moments:

* Less than half an hour into the meeting, the public-address system failed, leaving crowds in the back of the room and the overflow into the lobby unable to hear the discussion.

* The acting city attorney cut off a Sierra Club representative who was protesting the project, declaring that comments had to be restricted to the park’s environmental study. Minutes later, the rule was dropped when a park supporter said he had only general comments to make and was allowed to speak.

* Opponents who initially said the park might attract undesirable transients switched gears and complained that it could become an exclusive destination used only by wealthy RV owners.

* Velthoen, the city manager, followed one opponent out of City Hall and got into an argument with him, as Police Chief Robert Anderson stood alongside.

The hearing began with a two-hour presentation from a procession of consultants hired by the city for nearly $200,000 to conduct market analysis, environmental and property-value studies.

Community Development Director Thomas Figg gave a breakdown of city spending that was intended to show that the “coastal zone” consumes an inequitable share of the parks and recreation budget. The area has two-thirds of the city’s parkland and gets two-thirds of the department’s budget, Figg said.

An environmental consultant testified that the park’s only significant impacts that could not be mitigated were obstructions of beach and ocean views.

A “valuation impact” consultant then testified that, contrary to fears of area residents, the resort would boost property values rather than lower them. He showed a slide of a Newport Beach RV park in which a Mercedes-Benz was parked alongside a pricey motor home.

“My conclusion is there is probable property-value enhancement” for neighboring homeowners, John Donahue, the consultant, said. “I find nothing to speak to the contrary.”

Opponents laughed openly at Donahue’s remarks and then proceeded to attack both the city’s revenue projections and environmental assessment during the public comment portion of the hearing.

The City Council will vote on the project April 22. David Kantner, vice president of Surfside III Homeowners Assn., said opponents will continue to challenge the plan at the council meeting and subsequent hearings before the state Lands Commission and the Coastal Commission.