City Asked to Consider Interchange : Ventura Freeway: Project would route motorists to mall and harbor. Critics say it would violate greenbelt pact.

Ventura City Councilman Jim Monahan on Friday asked the city to consider building an interchange on the Ventura Freeway near Lemon Grove Avenue, a move that could bring thousands of cars daily to an area recently earmarked to remain farmland.

Monahan’s proposal was attacked by Councilman Gary Tuttle, who said he would not support any violation of the city’s greenbelt agreement with Oxnard.

“That’s a proposal that died a long time ago, and it should be put back to sleep,” Tuttle said. “I certainly will fight it to my last breath.”

Monahan said he brought the issue before Friday’s meeting of the city’s transportation committee because the interchange would route motorists more efficiently to Ventura Harbor and Buenaventura Mall.

As envisioned by Monahan, the interchange would be built on farmland surrounding the freeway at the so-called Lemon Overhead. The overhead is less than a mile south of the southernmost end of Lemon Grove Avenue.

Monahan said the interchange would alleviate traffic on Harbor Boulevard created by drivers who exit at Seaward Avenue and then use the boulevard to backtrack to the harbor. He said roads built in conjunction with the interchange would connect two important business hubs in the city--the mall and the harbor.

Everett Millais, Ventura’s director of community services, told Monahan that his plan would be contentious before the full City Council because at least four of its seven members have indicated they will not support any development in the greenbelt.

Even if the project managed to win council approval, said Senior Traffic Engineer Nazir Lalani, funding for it would not be available for at least three decades.

“The underlying message is even if we start planning now, we’re not going to see anything there for 25 to 30 years,” Lalani said.

Monahan said that for now he would settle for putting the issue up for consideration when the city reviews its General Plan, expected to take place by 1998.

“I’m just bringing it up so we can initiate the process,” Monahan said. “I’m not saying we should spend any money.”

The two other council members on the transportation committee, Rosa Lee Measures and Jack Tingstrom, supported Monahan’s request to examine the interchange when the General Plan is amended.

Jim Clark, a resident of the Ventura Keys neighborhood, said he applauds Monahan’s action. An interchange closer to the harbor would allow motorists to bypass his neighborhood, he said.

But even Clark seemed to doubt whether the interchange would ever get built.

“It would be a grand idea,” said the 62-year-old activist. “I’ll try to follow my doctor’s orders to exercise and eat well, and maybe I’ll live long enough to see it.”

An interchange at the Lemon Overhead was discussed by the council in the mid-70s, Millais told the committee. But it was removed from consideration when the city amended its General Plan a few years later, he said.

Since then, the area surrounding the Lemon Overhead has been designated as a greenbelt. That agreement, signed by the cities of Ventura and Oxnard earlier this year, requires that no development take place on the farmland for at least five years.