OXNARD : City Cancels Meeting on Housing Proposal

Oxnard officials on Tuesday canceled a special City Council meeting at which real estate speculator Donald T. Kojima was to submit a proposal to build 115 low-cost houses on city-owned property.

The meeting, which was not announced until noon Monday, was postponed until December because most council members could not attend the entire presentation, said city Atty. Gary Gillig.

“I admit, there was some confusion over whether a meeting was scheduled, so we decided to cancel,” Gillig said. “It’s too important not to have everyone there.”

The announcement of the meeting Monday came as a surprise to farm worker advocates, who were turned down earlier this month when they asked the council to let them submit alternative proposals at the same time as Kojima.

Kojima said he was just as surprised about the special meeting, which he did not learn about until he received a call from a city official Monday. He was originally scheduled to present his proposal Nov. 15, but that presentation was postponed.

Mayor Manuel Lopez said Monday that the council, which is not meeting again until Dec. 6, wanted to see what Kojima put together before outgoing Councilman Michael A. Plisky has to step down from office that day.

As part of a $5.32-million land deal between Kojima and Oxnard, the city agreed to give Kojima the first crack at submitting a proposal to build 115 low-cost houses on the property he had just sold.

The deal was conceived as a way to relocate the residents of the Oxnard Mobilehome Lodge, one of the county’s worst slums, by building them a new place to live. But the houses Kojima originally proposed were criticized by farm worker advocates as too expensive, and the council vowed to provide more affordable houses.