Plan to Stretch Downtown Boundaries OKd : Ventura: Housing panel hopes the move will help speed up the development of 330 townhomes and revitalize the area.

Hoping to fast-track a development of 330 townhouses in western Ventura, a City Council committee on Wednesday unanimously approved a plan to significantly stretch the downtown boundaries to include the Ventura Avenue area.

Downtown now is bordered by West Park Row Avenue on the north. The housing committee recommended expanding the boundaries more than 20 blocks north to Delaware Drive, which encompasses the entire upper Avenue neighborhood.

The new boundaries, if approved by the full council next month, would allow developers in the upper Avenue area to apply for housing units immediately. Developers outside the downtown area must wait until April to apply and must compete against each other for limited allocations.

The proposal by the Neel and Huntsinger families of Ventura, along with the headquarters of Kinko’s copy service, would change the character of the upper Avenue industrial neighborhood north of Stanley Avenue and west of Ventura Avenue with a development that would bring 330 townhouses and business offices.

The three-member committee, which is comprised of council members Jim Monahan, Jack Tingstrom and Rosa Lee Measures, has expressed strong support for the project.

Steve Perlman, a land use consultant hired by the Neels, Huntsingers and Kinko’s, said the committee’s action to help fast-track the project sends a strong signal to the community that city leaders are interested in supporting private redevelopment efforts.

“It’s an excellent opportunity to initiate the revitalization of the Avenue at a quicker pace,” Perlman said. “The Avenue is a vital link to downtown.”

The committee on Wednesday also recommended adding 200 housing units to the 500 already allocated for the city’s downtown area.

Tingstrom said he wants to encourage developers to add housing in the Avenue and downtown.

The additional housing units to the downtown area may help mollify other council members who worry that the Avenue will receive too many housing units.

Last year, the council passed a plan that makes downtown a priority for housing allocations. But no developers have proposed downtown housing, spurring pro-growth council members to back the expansion of downtown.

“We’re not getting anywhere,” Tingstrom said. “No one’s building in downtown.”

Some slow-growth and moderate council members, however, say they want to make downtown housing a priority over the Avenue and may reject the housing committee’s recommendation next month if it appears the Avenue project will draw away allocations for downtown.

“I would rather have units built on the Avenue than on the east end and in the greenbelt,” Councilman Steve Bennett said. “But I wouldn’t take Avenue housing over downtown.”

Housing should be concentrated in the city’s downtown area, which city officials plan to revitalize, Councilman Gregory L. Carson said.

Carson, a moderate, also noted that the most pro-growth and conservative council members sit on the housing committee.

“They don’t represent the whole council,” Carson said.