County Challenges City on Mandalay Bay Project : Oxnard: The Coastal Commission will consider how construction of 156 houses would affect the Channel Islands Harbor.

Ventura County officials are challenging Oxnard’s approval of a waterfront subdivision at Mandalay Bay, saying the project could put too many boats in the harbor and create damaging tidal flows.

In a rare bureaucratic tangle pitting the city against the county, the California Coastal Commission on Thursday will consider the county’s plea to halt construction of a 156-house project on 58 acres along newly dug canals leading to Channel Islands Harbor.

Harbor Manager Frank Anderson said he wants Oxnard leaders to delay the project until completion of a study to see how the county-owned harbor will be affected.

“The county at no level of staff or administration has problems with the project itself,” Anderson said. “Our concern is the harbor. We still haven’t got enough information, or done enough analysis, to be assured that there won’t be adverse impacts.”

Stemming from settlement of a lawsuit between the city and the county, the two bodies split the $250,000 cost to hire the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to study the impacts of additional boat traffic generated by the project.

But before the study could be completed, the Oxnard City Council in June approved the so-called Harbor Pointe project as a replacement for an earlier proposal to build four 10-story condominium buildings near Mandalay Bay.

The subdivision, a joint venture between Shamrock Holdings Inc. and Voss Construction Co. Inc., is to include open land for future commercial and recreational use. The plan also is to include a waterfront park and a bicycle and hiking path.

Harbor Pointe is the second phase of a larger project at Mandalay Bay already approved by the Coastal Commission.

Voss Construction recently completed a 129-unit condominium project on 23 acres at the end of Hemlock Street where it joins the Edison Co. canal. The $45-million development created new waterways and dozens of new boat slips.

Because the developer scaled back the second phase of the project, Oxnard officials said they readily endorsed the project.

“In comparison to the original proposal, the council decided the most current plan would have much less impact on the oceanfront community there,” said Oxnard Mayor Nao Takasugi of a project conceived more than a decade ago.

But that’s not the way harbor management sees it.

Anderson said he fears that cutting new water channels will increase the flow of seawater that moves in and out of the harbor with the changes in the tide and thus may damage the harbor’s docks and wharves. Even worse, he fears the new development will create boat traffic jams.

He said the Mandalay Bay project will introduce a minimum of 795 new boats to a harbor that has its hands full with the 3,000 vessels currently on the water or in dry storage.

“This was developed to be a small boat, recreational harbor,” Anderson said. “We’re looking toward the larger picture and wondering what this harbor is going to look like years down the road.”

Coastal Commission staff members are recommending that the commission take a new look at the project.

The commission will decide whether the county’s concerns have any merit and, if so, could call for a new hearing on Oxnard’s waterfront efforts.