Deals to Clear Way for New CSU Campus : Education: University, county and city officials near agreement on a plan to widen roads and lay water and sewer lines.

After nearly a year of negotiations, California State University officials are poised to sign agreements with local governments that will clear one of the final obstacles in the eight-year quest to build a public university in Ventura County.

In recent weeks, negotiators for the county and the cities of Camarillo and Oxnard have developed arrangements to work together to widen roads and lay water and sewer lines to the proposed four-year campus on 260 acres of farmland east of Camarillo.

Those agreements are now scheduled for final approval by Ventura County supervisors and the Oxnard and Camarillo city councils next week.

“These are very important building blocks and very important that they come now,” said Barry Munitz, chancellor of the 20-campus Cal State University system. “We cannot go ahead without knowing that water and sewers and roads will be in place.”

Joyce M. Kennedy, director of the Ventura campus of Cal State Northridge, said the anticipated approval is welcome progress that comes none too soon.

To tarry longer, she said, might jeopardize Ventura County’s chances of obtaining state money to build the university--especially at a time of the state’s ongoing budget crisis.

“Damn the torpedoes, let’s get on with the job,” she said. “Given the state of our economy, it’s more important than ever that we proceed with the university now or we will be left behind for the rest of the century.”

If approved as expected, the agreements clear the way for university officials to buy land for what would become Ventura County’s only four-year public university.

The university chose 320 acres of farmland west of Camarillo and north of the Ventura Freeway for the campus. Because of flood control problems, the size of the property the university wants to acquire has been shaved to 260 acres.

The university and Sakioka Farms, which owns 70 of the acres, have agreed on an undisclosed selling price, said David Leveille, CSU director of institutional relations.

But the second property owner, the Mohseni Ranches, which owns 190 acres of the property, has refused to sell or even allow university representatives on the land to inspect abandoned oil wells.

The university is working with the California attorney general’s office to get a court order to allow the wells to be inspected, Leveille said. A court order to allow technicians to determine whether the wells were properly capped is expected in January, he said.

Once officials know whether there are significant environmental problems on the land, they can move forward to condemn the Mohseni property at what would be the fair market price.

“Our board last week said they are prepared to move to condemnation,” he said, once it has the signed agreements from the cities and the property report.

Although it has been a long and tedious process, the signed agreements together with the anticipated court order represent substantial progress in the often contentious effort to build the university.

The current search for a Ventura County campus dates back to 1984. Cal State officials first chose property offered by the Lusk Co. near Ventura Harbor as its preferred site. But homeowners in the Ventura Keys protested the projected increase in traffic and the landowners were asking for guarantees that they would be permitted to develop adjoining land.

In 1987, the city of Ventura led Cal State to the Taylor Ranch site on a hillside bluff west of Ventura.

The City Council at the time endorsed the site. But a new council elected in 1989 feared too much growth and refused to support the university.

In addition, the Taylor Ranch owners, who had once been willing to negotiate, said that they would oppose the taking of their land for a public university.

In 1990, university officials reopened the search and eventually chose the so-called Duntley-Chaffee property west of Camarillo as the site with the fewest environmental problems.

At the same time Cal State began looking for a campus in Ventura County, it started the same process in northern San Diego County. The community of San Marcos embraced the university, officials said, pledging and following through with help to bring the necessary water and sewer services and roads to the campus.

San Marcos opened in 1990 as a two-year upper-division campus and is now a four-year university. The same time frame in Contra Costa County has produced a new permanent off-campus center.

Although past attempts to find an acceptable site in Ventura County were discouraging, the new agreements are a hopeful sign for future cooperation, Leveille said.

“It would be nice if we had something up and operating now,” Leveille said. “There is no question there is a tremendous need.” The CSU system now offers a restricted number of upper-division and graduate classes through Cal State Northridge in rented space at a west Ventura office building.

Under the agreements, either the city of Oxnard or Camarillo would provide water and sewer services.

The city of Oxnard already plans to lay a freshwater pipeline near the university site as part of its master plan for the city’s northeast area, said City Manager Vern Hazen. In addition, the city has just completed a $50-million expansion of its sewage-treatment facilities and could accommodate the university’s needs, he said.

Oxnard officials have assured the university that they will be willing partners.

“We have so many kids in Ventura County that can’t afford to go away to a four-year university,” Hazen said. “This provides them an opportunity for higher education.”

Camarillo City Manager J. William Little said the city has always supported the university and would work with officials to ensure delivery of services. But he declined to be more specific until the City Council has seen the proposed memorandum of understanding.

The county of Ventura will probably coordinate the two remaining big-ticket services--roads and flood controls--that the university would require, said Arthur E. Goulet, the county’s director of public works.

Funds for the two projects, which will run well above $10 million, will come predominantly from federal sources, Goulet said. Money to widen Santa Clara and Central avenues and improve the interchange at the Ventura Freeway and Central Avenue will probably come in the form of federal transportation funds, he said.

Money for a mile-long flood control channel that cuts diagonally through the property will probably come from the U.S. Soil Conservation Service, which has been planning for years to build the project, Goulet said.

“The county’s plan for flood control (in the area) has been to build projects as money became available,” Goulet said. “Now, we’re saying we’ll make it a priority and bring the university’s clout behind us in seeking the funding.”

Goulet said the agreements are promises of good faith to the university.

“The university wants to be assured that it will pay no more than any other developer would for the services,” Goulet said. “The cities and the county want to be assured that the university will bear its fair share of costs.

“The main thing is we’re committed to making it work,” he said.