Housing Plan Altering Creek Course Is Opposed : Camarillo: Many fear flooding, environmental damage will result from Pardee’s project. Builder says homeowners object to losing scenic views.
After building more than 3,000 homes on the east end of Camarillo over the last two decades, Ventura County’s largest developer has angered scores of homeowners with its plan to construct houses on land that now is on the bottom of Calleguas Creek.
The proposed development will be possible if Pardee Construction Co. gains city, county and federal approval for a $10-million project to change the course of a one-mile stretch of the creek in east Camarillo.
Pardee’s plan has sparked concern among nearby residents, who say changing the creek’s natural course could prove disastrous, bringing floods and permanent destruction of scarce environmental resources.
But Pardee officials say the dispute really is about homeowners who don’t want to lose their view of the creek. The company defends the plan, saying it benefits the environment.
“The plan is to improve the creek, not to realign it, basically,” said Willard B. Teller, Pardee assistant vice president and manager of the company’s Ventura County projects.
The creek project is an outgrowth of Pardee’s desire to develop Pitts Ranch on the west bank of the Calleguas, in the Mission Oaks section of Camarillo. Because the ranch abuts the creek, any development there must include shoring up the banks of the adjoining waterway to prevent flooding.
Pardee, which wants to build almost 1,000 single- and multifamily homes on 150 acres of Pitts Ranch, has designed a $10-million channeling project to narrow and deepen Calleguas Creek, and to replace a planned mobile home park with 60 acres of open space that would include a 20-acre riparian habitat.
The creek alteration also will free up 25 acres of land across the water from Pitts Ranch, including 10 acres that are on the creek bottom. Pardee is trying to get city approval to build 99 homes on that parcel, with about 40 of them constructed on the former creek bed.
That part of the plan has provoked the ire of some homeowners whose property overlooks the creek and who paid extra money for their location when they bought their houses from Pardee three to four years ago.
If the plan is approved, the homeowners’ back yards will overlook the rooftops of the 99 houses instead of the creek.
“We may seem a little selfish because this is in our back yard . . . but this is one of the few natural areas still in the city of Camarillo,” said Lynn Abel, who says he paid an extra $20,000 for his luxury home four years ago because of its location. “Developers will build everything they own until it’s all concrete. We’re saying, just stop when you go to the creek line . . .. Stop. You’ve had enough.”
That view is echoed by Abel’s neighbor, Jerry Frost, who promises to fight the Pardee plan “all the way to the end of this project.”
“There’s a quality-of-life issue that’s bigger than profits, and somebody has to say, ‘That’s enough,’ ” Frost said.
The project is proceeding through two approval processes: The Ventura County Flood Control Department has final say on what Pardee does to the creek, and the city of Camarillo dictates the fate of the surrounding land.
Environmental studies have yet to be completed on either portion of the project, but Camarillo’s draft report on rezoning the land next to the creek could be ready later this month. Teller said even if the project is approved, home construction could not begin before January, 1996.
Opponents of the project say they fear there is nothing they can do to stop it because of Pardee’s clout in the community.
Pardee has been a major force in Camarillo since 1969, when it bought more than 1,000 acres in the city. Since then the company has purchased another 300 acres. All 3,000 homes in Mission Oaks were built by Pardee, beginning in 1975.
“Developer fees have been fueling the size of Camarillo’s budget,” resident Abel said, expressing concern that city officials will be unwilling to kill the project. “They have to have a certain number of homes built every year because it brings in money.”
As for county flood officials, Abel charged that they want the project to go forward because they are getting the creek shored up without using taxpayer money.
Pardee’s Teller also said the county Flood Control Department wants the project to go forward.
But Alex Sheydayi, who oversees the agency, says that is not the case.
“The flood protection work really is not needed unless the land is going to be developed,” Sheydayi said. “If the city is going to allow Pardee to build there, then Pardee needs to do something to protect it. But if Pardee doesn’t build, there’s nothing that needs protecting.”
People on both sides of the argument over whether to change the creek are claiming environmental motivations.
Teller said the rechanneling will decrease erosion of the creek bank and reduce the sediment that is flowing 12 miles downstream to Mugu Lagoon, an open bay near the ocean that geologists say will disappear in 50 years if the erosion is not curbed.
He also said that land proposed as a riparian area presently is an eyesore, used as a dumping ground for refrigerators and other trash.
On the other hand, Cynthia Leake, vice president of the Ventura County Environmental Coalition and an east Camarillo resident, says Pardee is destroying the city’s quality of life.
“Nothing is being preserved for any future generation,” Leake said. “They have no right to be able to buy a natural resource and then change it.”
Frost and Abel, whose back yards overlook Calleguas Creek, say red-tail hawks, coyotes, possums and other wildlife will be lost if the Pardee plan goes through. And they accuse the developer of hiding behind the Mugu Lagoon to justify changing the creek.
But Sheydayi says the environmental argument is a smoke screen on both sides.
“Pardee wants to develop land,” the flood control official said. “Pardee is not doing this out of the goodness of their heart to protect Mugu Lagoon.”
As for opponents of the plan, Sheydayi said many have become environmentally minded “because it gives them ammunition to fight something.”
Although the flood control department is the lead government agency overseeing the creek project, approval also must be granted by the California Fish and Game Department, the U. S. Wildlife Service and the Army Corps of Engineers.
Kenneth Wilson, Fish and Game’s environmental specialist for stream-bed alterations in Ventura, Santa Barbara and west Los Angeles counties, says Pardee’s proposed creek project is “relatively sensitive to wildlife issues.”
“From what I can tell on the surface, it doesn’t look too bad,” Wilson said. “It’s a fairly sensitive plan, surprisingly enough.”
While opponents to the plan scoff at Pardee’s claim that the creek alteration will improve the local environment, Wilson and Sheydayi say that appears to be the case.
The new riparian area--wild-growth vegetation common to the river bottom--would be bigger than the existing one, Wilson noted. In addition, it will be protected from heavy flooding so the vegetation can take root.
And Pardee will plant vegetation along the sides of the creek instead of installing concrete banks, Wilson said.
But even if the creek design is justifiable, the 99 homes should not be built next to it, critics say.
Many opponents of the Pardee project have expressed concern that the 99 houses would be vulnerable to flooding. Teller, however, says the land would be elevated 12 to 15 feet to keep it above the anticipated water level during a once-in-a-century flood.
Sheydayi also said there should be no problem with building the homes in a former creek bed.
“It’s nothing extraordinary or unusual,” he said. “What’s being done here has been done many other places.”
Brenda Sweatt, administrative manager for Rancho Adolfo Estates, a mobile home park just downstream from the proposed project, said that even if the 99 houses don’t flood, their presence will cause increased creek runoff that could create major problems for residents of the park.
“I think the biggest concern is you don’t redesign the creek,” Sweatt said. “I think this park is in for some flooding.”
Frost said he fears the area will soon look like the San Fernando Valley, but Camarillo senior planner Robert W. Burrow denies that.
“I don’t think the Mission Oaks master plan is the San Fernando Valley by any means,” Burrow said. “It’s just that now they are seeing the completion of the Mission Oaks master plan as it was adopted in the 1970s.”
Teller said Pardee has been sensitive to the concerns of surrounding neighborhoods as it developed its plans. For example, he said, the 60 acres of open space that would include the riparian area currently is zoned for a mobile home park.
Pardee is asking Camarillo city officials to change the zoning to open space because residents of the nearby Hillcrest neighborhood do not want to look down on mobile homes, Teller said.
Similarly, Pardee’s original idea for the land across from Pitts Ranch was to build apartments or condominiums. Because of complaints from the neighborhood where Frost and Abel live, Pardee changed it to single-family homes.
Sheydayi said if his agency had spearheaded the project, it would not have designed such an extensive project because it would not be interested in any land reclamation. But he said he does not blame Pardee for what it wants to do.
