Developer Demand Intense for Housing Units : Growth: The Ventura council will meet with other officials to start deciding who will be allowed to build, and when.

On file in Ventura’s planning department is an 11-page document listing the proposals for 2,661 housing units that builders want to construct in the city.

On the planning rule books is another number: 1,081, the number of homes that the city has pledged to permit through 1999.

On Tuesday, the City Council will meet with planning commissioners and other officials to start deciding which developers will be allowed to build, and how soon.

On one extreme, some residents say Ventura should continue as it has for the last four years and not allot any new developments except lower-income projects.

Even some who agree that growth would be good for the economy balk at paving over more lemon groves for another housing tract.

But the developers are offering enticements, and some council members--who will have the final word--say they find some offers very attractive.

“I’ve got a very open mind on it all,” Mayor Tom Buford said, adding that developer Eric Wittenberg’s proposal to build 439 homes in east Ventura is particularly interesting because, as an incentive, Wittenberg would provide 22 acres for a veterans nursing home.

Those 439 housing units--proposed only recently--are not included among the 2,661 already seeking approval, but may be added to the tally Tuesday.

Councilman Jack Tingstrom, on the other hand, said he likes a deal put forth by developer Ron Hertel. Hertel wants to give Ventura $2 million to build a park on property he owns at Telephone and Kimball roads, in exchange for the city’s blessing to build 437 homes on a city-owned lemon orchard at Telegraph Road and Petit Avenue.

“A lot of people in the community are really in favor of it,” Tingstrom said.

Many are also against it. They are circulating petitions for a ballot measure to stop the Hertel development and all construction on land zoned for agriculture.

Council members and planning commissioners agree that they face tough choices this summer.

“This is probably one of the most challenging issues the council will address,” Councilwoman Rosa Lee Measures said.

The council created its latest housing ceiling five years ago when the city revised its comprehensive plan. Bound by county-mandated air pollution and population-control standards, city leaders set strict limits on future housing allotments until the year 2000.

With 900 units set aside for the downtown area, where the council has focused a major redevelopment effort, slightly more than 1,000 allocations remain elsewhere for the next five years.

Demand is intense, in part because the city has not given any allocations since the summer of 1990. During a three-year drought, the city put a moratorium on all new building. Then, last year, council members again put new construction on hold while they informed developers that they wanted incentives in return for permission to build.

“We’ve never had quite such (an application) crunch as we have now,” said Karen Bates, a city planner. “We only have this limited ceiling and we have all these developers with developable land.”

Is it frustrating for builders?

“That’s an understatement,” said Wittenberg, who in addition to his 439-home proposal has also filed an application to build 105 homes east of Saticoy Avenue and north of North Bank Drive.

“I started applying in the late 1980s and I’ve tried every year ever since,” he said. “You go to the city and they rate your project and decide to give you some or none or what-have-you. . . . It’s difficult, but then it’s difficult in all cities these days.”

Some council members and planning commissioners say it is crucial for the city, in giving its first allocations this decade, to be cautious and mete out housing slowly.

“We have a lot of bargaining power,” said Ingrid Elsel, chairwoman of the Planning Commission. “I certainly don’t think we should give everything away this year that we have to offer.”

Councilman Gary Tuttle said he wants to designate about 180 of the city’s allocations this year. That amount, he said, should go to a housing development proposed for the Ventura Avenue area by the Neel and Huntsinger families and Kinko’s, the national copy service headquartered in the area.

Tuttle said the aging Avenue area needs new development. And he is leery of issuing all 1,018 permits too quickly.

“I’m not about to give away 200 to Kinko’s this year and 400 to Wittenberg next year and 500 to Hertel the year after that and that’s it, we’re done with housing allocations for the next five years, so let’s rewrite the comprehensive plan so we can get more housing,” Tuttle said. “If any council members want to do that, they’re in for a bloody fight.”

But Councilman Jim Monahan said that approving as many developments as possible this year could be a big economic boost for the city.

“Sure, we’re so far behind in that area,” he said. “That many houses being developed this year would really enhance employment in the area. It’s construction and only short-term, but it makes a difference.”

Of the 2,661 units proposed for development, slightly more than one-third would be condominiums, mobile homes and apartment buildings. The rest would be single-family homes.

Tingstrom said some of that housing should be affordable.

“I’m looking for a house and, I’m telling you, there’s nothing out there,” he said. “You have so-called affordable housing that starts at $160,000, but I don’t know who that’s affordable to.”

Many residents agree, citing the lack of reasonably priced housing as Ventura’s biggest development problem.

“A lot of people are moving out of the area because they can’t afford homes here,” said Debbie Davidson, 32, a renter in mid-town Ventura. Davidson said she knows people who moved as far as Nevada, Oregon and even the Midwest in search of housing in their price range.

“Myself, I’d like to see something for $140,000 that’s not a condominium,” she said.

Yvonne Aguilar, 45, said the city also needs more low-priced apartment rentals. Aguilar shares an apartment with her son on Ralston Street because she cannot afford to live on her own in Ventura.

“I’m looking for a place for myself but all the (rents) are too high,” she said. “They start at $700 to $800 per month, and that’s not including utilities.”