Showdown Expected at Greenbelt Hearing : Oxnard: Landowners in the proposed area say the measure is needlessly restrictive. The mayor says he expects a close vote.

A showdown between farmers and open-space advocates is expected at a public hearing Tuesday when the Oxnard City Council considers a proposal to create a 4,575-acre coastal greenbelt between Oxnard and Ventura.

The agreement would designate about 2,865 acres in Oxnard and 1,710 acres in Ventura as open space to preserve agricultural land. Most of the land is under cultivation, with 95 active and abandoned oil wells scattered across the Oxnard portion.

If approved, the agreement would create the sixth such greenbelt in Ventura County.

While not binding to either city, the agreement would fulfill the planning goals established in each city’s recently approved general plans and lend political weight to the preservation of agriculture.

Yet advocates and opponents alike say passage by the Oxnard City Council is anything but assured. Landowners in the proposed greenbelt have opposed the measure as needlessly restrictive, saying that greenbelt supporters are forcing them to pay the cost of preserving open space.

And although the proposed agreement sailed through the Ventura Planning Commission and City Council with unanimous votes, Oxnard planning commissioners initially deadlocked before narrowly approving the measure in July.

When the commission held public hearings on the proposed greenbelt, a majority of the proponents were Ventura residents, although advocates turned in a list of two dozen supporters who live in Oxnard. Opposing the agreement were most of the landowners in the designated area, the Ventura County Farm Bureau, the Oxnard Chamber of Commerce and the Building Industry Assn. of Southern California.

On Friday, Oxnard Mayor Manuel Lopez said he expects the council vote on the greenbelt will be close.

Lopez said he supports the greenbelt concept but is disappointed by what he views as its inability to halt development.

“For all practical purposes, the greenbelts really haven’t worked the way they were supposed to,” Lopez said. He pointed to development that has occurred in the greenbelt separating Ventura and Santa Paula and the one between Oxnard and Camarillo.

“The promise of greenbelts has been greater than the results,” Lopez said. “The greenbelt is more of a psychological exercise.”

Camarillo City Manager J. William Little disputed Lopez’s claim that the greenbelt created between the two cities has not halted urbanization.

“We totally disagree,” Little said.

Apart from the approval of a site for a California State University within the greenbelt, Little said the agreement has accomplished what Camarillo wanted. “Our position is that the greenbelt agreement is the thing that distinguishes Ventura County from the rest of Southern California.”

But landowners in the Oxnard portion of the proposed greenbelt have consistently opposed the measure, saying zoning law already prohibits the development of their land.

Jurgen Gramckow, whose Southland Sod Farms raises turf on 438 acres within the proposed greenbelt, said the measure would create political restraints on his land, over and above legal regulations.

“There are sufficient controls on the property as it currently exists,” Gramckow said. “The reality is it’s farmland and will remain farmland for a long time.”

Bob Braitman, a private land-use consultant and former director of the county’s Local Agency Formation Commission, said he believes Oxnard officials are reluctant to take the type of political position that Gramckow fears.

“Nothing in state law defines what a greenbelt is. It’s a local invention,” Braitman said. “The purpose is to reflect land-use decisions that have already been made in order to have a cooperative planning arrangement” with neighboring cities.

Oxnard’s seeming reluctance to approve the agreement may call into question the city’s commitment to agricultural open space, he said.

“Oxnard is still looking to develop its way into prosperity, and may be afraid of losing power over land-use planning,” Braitman said.

But Lopez said the real issue to him is whether the majority of residents support the goals that a greenbelt enforces.

“If the people still have the same dream (to preserve agricultural land) I had 20 years ago, I will support the greenbelt,” Lopez said.