Development Plan Concerns Neighbors

Some property owners and businesses in the northern Ventura Avenue area are worried about a proposed large housing and business development that could greatly change the character of the city’s old industrial neighborhood.

In a public meeting Thursday night, property owners and businesses expressed concerns about a project that would add 330 residential units, a park, business offices and industrial buildings to the industrial neighborhood.

“There’s no where to go,” said Henry Iverson, who heads a plumbers’ union that owns a lot in the area.

The concerns are over a joint project proposed by two landowning families and Kinko’s--the national copy service company headquartered in the neighborhood. The Neel and Huntsinger families and Kinko’s are asking the Ventura City Council to rezone their property from heavy industrial use to light industrial and residential zoning so they can proceed with the mixed-use development.

But the three landowners are also asking the city to rezone some of the neighboring properties to make the heavily industrial neighborhood more consistent with their proposal to infuse the area with houses and business offices. That request has angered some neighbors.

“I don’t understand why they can’t go ahead and do what they want to do and develop their property without affecting our properties,” said Bill Kendall, a partner of a real estate management company that owns property nearby.