Anonymous Developer Proposes Land Swap : Ventura: Broker says unnamed client could offer up to $5.55 million for regional park in exchange for permission to build homes.

An anonymous developer says he will up the ante in a controversial land swap proposal, offering to pay Ventura twice as much money to construct a park in return for permission to build 400 homes in the city’s greenbelt.

Barry Moore, a longtime Ventura real estate broker, asserts his unnamed client could offer the city up to $5.55 million for a regional park. In return, his client wants to construct about 400 houses on a city-owned lemon orchard. Moore outlined the proposal in a letter Wednesday to the mayor and city planners.

Moore said he pitched the concept to his client a couple weeks ago, picking up the idea from local developer Ron Hertel, who proposes giving Ventura $2 million for a park in exchange for housing allocations.

Councilman Steve Bennett, who has urged the council to hunt for other offers on the city’s land before accepting Hertel’s, called Moore’s letter “really interesting” and said he would like to learn more about it.

But others on the council viewed the proposal more skeptically.

“I didn’t give a real close look to it,” Mayor Tom Buford said. “We have a lot of people out there with ideas.”

Moore and Hertel, however, are the only two to put their proposals in writing to the city.

Hertel owns 94 acres at the corner of Telephone and Kimball roads, which he cannot build on because they are designated as farmland until 2010.

Attempting to profit from his land sooner, Hertel proposes swapping his property with the city’s 87-acre citrus grove at the intersection of Telegraph Road and Petit Avenue. Also zoned agricultural until 2010, the city’s land was purchased as a future park site, but the city does not have the money to make it happen.

Hertel says he will give Ventura $2 million for a park on his land south of the Santa Paula Freeway, if, in exchange, he gets permission to build 437 homes on the city’s property.

Moore’s client has a more lucrative proposal for the city.

The client, which Moore describes as a development corporation, offers to pay the city $8.7 million for its property.

The proposal, as outlined in the letter, suggests that the city can use those funds to buy land for a park, and still have $4.15 million to $5.55 million left for the park’s development.

For example, Moore writes in the letter, the city could buy Hertel’s property for $3.15 million, the price at which it has “recently been available.”

That would value the land at about $35,000 an acre, which is what councilmen Gary Tuttle and Steve Bennett also claim it is worth.

But Hertel says his land is worth $65,000 an acre, and denies he ever tried to sell it, at any price. “That letter is not true,” he said.

Moore declined to say what he meant by saying the property has “recently been available” and would not provide proof that the land was ever on the market. But Councilman Gary Tuttle said he has also heard the same rumor, that Hertel tried to sell his property at $35,000 an acre.

Hertel values the city’s property at about $13 million, but discounts the price to $7.8 million because Ventura will not let him build all his houses at once.

Moore’s letter arrived at Ventura’s planning department 19 days before the council will dole out housing allocations for the year.

Twelve developers want to build more than 3,000 dwellings in Ventura. Bound by county population and smog controls, Ventura’s council members can only permit up to 1,018 dwellings through 1999, and the competition for those limited allotments is intense.

Hertel’s proposal in particular has generated extensive publicity, pitting eastside sports enthusiasts against their slow-growth neighbors. Given the attention focused on Hertel’s proposed land swap, Ventura planner Karen Bates said she finds the timing of Moore’s letter curious.

“Either this person is trying to blackball Hertel’s proposal,” she said, “or he wants to go ahead and build a park and could care less about developing the city’s property. I just can’t figure out the angle.”

Councilwoman Rosa Lee Measures, who calls Hertel a close, personal friend, also criticized the new proposal’s arrival at such a late date. In any case, she said, she found little of interest in it.

“The dollars, right now, are irrelevant in my opinion,” she said. “They’re clouding the issue, which is do we want a regional park on that property?”

Measures said the Hertel land is the ideal site for a city park.

Bates said she also wonders how solid the proposal is, especially since the letter contains typographical errors which a more serious applicant might have caught before mailing the document. And especially, she added, since Moore’s client insists on remaining anonymous.

Moore said he realized a couple weeks ago that the council might be open to considering other offers on the lemon orchard, besides only Hertel’s. He then discussed the idea with his client, he said.

As for his client refusing to reveal his identity, Moore said: “There’s a lot at stake here. I’m just a broker serving a client and they’re saying, ‘Don’t talk to anyone right now.”’