OJAI VALLEY : Lawsuit Filed to Block Golf Course Project

An environmental group on Monday filed a lawsuit against Ventura County and the Farmont Corp. over the county’s approval of an Ojai Valley golf course development, officials said.

The suit, filed in Ventura County Superior Court, asks that a judge require the Board of Supervisors to reverse its decision to allow Farmont to build the 204-acre course, said Phil Seymour, the Santa Barbara lawyer who filed the suit on behalf of the Environmental Coalition of Ventura County.

The coalition argues that the board violated the county’s General Plan because the project permits the developer to irrigate the golf course with potable water, said Alasdair Coyne, coalition member.

The Board of Supervisors approved the project Feb. 2 after Farmont agreed to give up its right to 1,483 acre-feet of Ventura River water and to limit its water use to 417 acre-feet annually. An acre-foot is 326,000 gallons. Farmont also agreed to use recycled water for the golf course once a reliable source becomes available.

Farmont’s attorney, Lindsay Nielson, dismissed the lawsuit as “an awful waste of time and money.”

Nielson said the lawsuit would not stop the project from going forward. The golf course is scheduled to open in January, 1996.

Coyne said the purpose of the lawsuit is not stop the project. “We’re trying to ensure that a wealthy, influential corporation doesn’t get around the planning and building rules that everybody else has to follow,” he said.

Coyne said the lawsuit is being funded by contributions from about 200 people, most of whom live in the Ojai Valley and are opposed to the development.