Trailer Camp Could Be Moved to Project Site : Oxnard: A committee discusses relocating hundreds of farm workers to an 856-acre parcel that represents one of the largest development proposals in the city.

A sprawling commercial and residential development proposed for Oxnard’s northeast side is the leading contender to be the replacement site for a run-down trailer camp that is home to hundreds of farm-worker families.

Oxnard officials have long sought to relocate the Oxnard Mobilehome Lodge, a 140-unit park squeezed onto five acres behind a Commercial Avenue industrial strip.

A site-selection committee met Monday to discuss relocating members of the cramped and crowded community to the so-called Northeast Community, an 856-acre agricultural island slated as one of the largest development proposals in Oxnard’s history.

“It hurts me a lot to tell you that we already have seven or eight years in this fight,” said Luis Teran, a committee member and president of the park’s tenant association. “What I’ve seen is that they haven’t wanted us anyplace. Now it’s time to stop talking and get on with it.”

With nearly 1,100 residents and an average of 28 trailers per acre, the mobile-home lodge is one of Ventura County’s densest enclaves and is considered to be among its most dangerous, having existed for many years with numerous fire and safety violations.

City officials tentatively agreed last year to move the aging trailer camp to a field near the south Oxnard neighborhood of Tierra Vista, but reversed that decision after neighbors complained.

Instead, the City Council established an 11-member committee in October to search for alternatives.

The committee has reviewed 10 sites throughout the city and is expected to make a recommendation to the City Council on Feb. 2.

So far, committee members have ranked a 20-acre patch of farmland within the proposed Northeast Community as the most suitable site. And they heard for the first time Monday from landowner Don Kojima that, though he was initially opposed, he now is willing to sell part of his land for the new park site.

“We’ve considered it again and, provided we can work out certain details, we would be very receptive,” Kojima told the committee. “We’d like to help the city provide something that is really needed.”

As proposed, the Northeast Community would be an expansive collection of houses, parks and schools east of Oxnard Boulevard, between Gonzales and Colonia roads.

It would include 36 acres of business parks and 20 acres of office buildings, to be constructed in five phases over 25 years. It would add four schools, 3,000 housing units and 9,500 residents to an area now mostly made up of strawberry fields and cabbage patches.

The project is still in the early planning stages, with construction not expected to begin until at least 1994.

Committee members on Monday expressed concern about mounting opposition from environmentalists and neighbors of the Northeast Community site, fearing that prolonged dissent will delay construction of the new park.

“Quite frankly, it seems that it’s a trend of the city that whenever there’s a problem about where to put a project, they come to our neighborhood to solve it,” said Carlos Aguilera, who heads the La Colonia Neighborhood Council. “We are not in favor of this.”

The estimated price tag on the new mobile home park is $11 million.

As proposed, park residents would form a nonprofit corporation to develop the site and after 15 years--with the help of a state loan, tax credits and a municipal bond issue--buy their own double-wide, three-bedroom coaches.

The committee is expected to make its final site selection next week.

“Based on all the work we’ve done, the Northeast Community is the best spot,” committee member Art Hernandez said.