Homeowner Drafts Initiative to Protect Ventura’s Greenbelt : Open space: The proposed ballot measure would require voter approval of any development in the city-designated area.

Ventura city voters would have the last say on any new developments intruding on the city’s greenbelt, under a ballot initiative proposed by a Ventura homeowner.

Bruce Vincent, angered at the prospect of development in orchards next to his east Ventura house, has drawn up an initiative that would require a majority of city voters to approve any development in the city-designated greenbelt.

As it stands now, the City Council has designated specific agricultural areas to be off-limits to development until the year 2010. But council members also have the authority to change its greenbelt rules and are considering such an exception in a controversial land-swap deal.

“We don’t just want this group up there, on their dais, deciding what is best for developers,” Vincent said. “We don’t want Ventura to turn into cookie-cutter developments and strip malls. What this city has to offer is things like virtually clean air, little or no traffic, and citrus groves.”

Vincent has hired former Ventura Mayor Richard Francis, an attorney, to help him draft the measure and qualify it for the November ballot. Vincent must gather the signatures of 8,700 registered voters by June 15.

Francis, who has mounted similar development initiatives in the past, said he thinks the issue will have strong support from Ventura voters.

“Everybody’s assumed the environment is dead,” Francis said. “It’s not dead. It’s alive and well and to some extent frustrated.”

Vincent said he is motivated by a land-swap deal that could lead to building 436 houses on an 87-acre lemon orchard behind his house.

The City Council is weighing a proposal by developer Ron Hertel to trade 92 acres he owns near the Kimball Road off-ramp on the Santa Paula Freeway for the 87 acres at the northeast corner of Telegraph Road and Petit Avenue behind Vincent’s home. To sweeten the deal, Hertel has offered to give the city $2 million to put a public park on the Kimball Road property.

The catch is that both the city’s property and Hertel’s property are designated as part of the city’s greenbelt. And the City Council would have to amend its Comprehensive Plan before Hertel could knock down a single lemon tree on the Telegraph Road property.

Many council members, however, seem amenable to that prospect. In a 4-1 vote two months ago, the council gave Hertel its blessing to go forward with his proposed land swap. City officials are negotiating with the developer and the project is set to come before the council for final approval this year.

All this infuriates Bruce and Sheri Vincent, who contend that Hertel’s sales agents promised them when they bought their home four years ago that the orchard would not be developed.

“It’s very desirable to back up to miles of orchards,” Vincent said, standing on the tiles by his spa and gesturing out at the trees across the street from the back of his house. “We based our home purchase on what we were told--that if anything happens to this land, it’ll probably be a regional park, but most likely, it’ll stay an orchard.”

Hertel said his sales agents were never instructed to make such a pitch to prospective buyers, and if they did, they were obviously wrong in doing so.

Hertel and some City Council members, not surprisingly, are less than thrilled about Vincent’s initiative.

“It’s an obvious move on his part to prevent the land swap,” Hertel said. “I consider it a selfish act . . . since he seems only interested in himself.”

Mayor Tom Buford, who voted for the project, said he thinks the initiative, if passed, would rob city government of flexibility in dealing with future developments.

“This certainly is an indication of a loss of confidence in the process and perhaps in particular elected officials,” he said. “I don’t think people think this solution is desirable, but they lose confidence in their officials and say, ‘We will have to take matters into our own hands.’ ”

Vincent is not alone in his battle against Hertel and City Hall. Neighbors in his tract and others embattled by possible development say they are eager to help circulate petitions and drum up votes for the measure.

“I really feel that the city needs to protect green space,” said Les Walker, who lives down the street from Vincent. Walker says he intends to plant himself in front of local markets and strip mall shops, offering petitions to sign to any willing passerby.

Sy Einstoss, whose nearly 30-year-old house abuts yet another proposed greenbelt development, said he plans to go “all out” to get the initiative on the November ballot.

“We’d be another Orange County if we let these guys do what they wanted to do,” said Einstoss, who lives next door to the 222 agricultural acres that developer Brad Jones would like to transform into 815 houses. The orchards are located just east of North Hill Road, between Foothill and Telegraph roads.

“Our home was built on ag land, but that was years ago,” Einstoss said. “I’m really against any further development.”