Housing Plan for Farmland Protested in Oxnard : Development: Site is wanted for a project that would include low-cost residences. But neighbors say area is for greenbelt.

Residents and landowners in east Oxnard are banding together to protest a proposal to build 716 houses on farmland that the city has exempted from development until the year 2020.

Affordable Homebuilders Inc. of Ventura is pushing for its Channel Islands Estates project, arguing that it would provide what Oxnard needs most: 159 low-cost residences for financially struggling families.

The Oxnard City Council in September allowed the developer to move forward with a preliminary plan to build the housing, which would be built near Channel Islands Boulevard and Rice Avenue.

But the 132-acre site is outside the city’s boundaries in an area that Oxnard, Camarillo and Ventura set aside as a greenbelt, and critics of the plan say it typifies Oxnard’s hypocrisy regarding the preservation of open space.

“The city vows to keep the land in a greenbelt,” said Fred Rosenmund, whose family owns the 150-acre Rosenmund Ranch adjacent to the proposed site. “But as soon as one developer comes up, offering to build some affordable housing, they cave in and break their own promise.”

For the housing project to break ground, the land would have to be placed within Oxnard’s jurisdiction by the Local Agency Formation Commission, a state agency that handles matters of city boundaries and influence.

Camarillo and the county would also have to approve the deal. And an environmental report must be completed before the Oxnard City Council could give the project final approval.

The entire process is expected to take at least two years, officials said.

Meanwhile, leaders of Oxnard’s Lemonwood and Diamond Bar neighborhoods are considering mounting a letter-writing campaign and rallying their neighbors to oppose the project. They said they want to fight the development because it would add to traffic congestion and bring unwanted low-income neighbors to the area in addition to cutting into the greenbelt.

“We have been striving to reduce our crime, and we feel that this will increase crime in the area,” said Chris Schweinhard, chairman of the Lemonwood neighborhood group, which represents about 10,000 residents. “All of the neighborhoods are getting older, and we want to maintain what we’ve got.”

Neighborhood leaders will consider the petition drive during separate meetings in coming weeks. They are also trying to lobby officials from Ventura County, Camarillo and Oxnard to oppose the housing project.

“When we moved out here there were lemon trees and strawberry fields,” Schweinhard said. “It was almost a little paradise. But the city since that point in time has put in all these roads and developments, and the tract has begun to deteriorate.”

Jerry Foy, chairman of the Diamond Bar neighborhood group, said he and many of the neighborhood’s 500 homeowners moved to the area because they thought they would be at the boundary of Oxnard’s development.

“This was supposed to be the edge of the greenbelt,” said Ronald D. Brown, a 30-year resident of Diamond Bar. “But they’ve made it into an asphalt jungle. It’s discouraging to see what’s happening to this area.”

Foy said there are plenty of places within the city to place affordable housing projects, and that coastal neighborhoods should bear the burden along with the inland areas.

“It’s not that we’re opposed to affordable housing,” Foy said. “We just feel that out in this end of town, we have our share.”

Lynn Jacobs, president of Affordable Homebuilders Inc., said she has talked with representatives of the Diamond Bar neighborhood and plans to meet with them once they have a detailed development plan together, which should be in a few weeks.

“We always try and work with the residents to try and get their input on a project,” Jacobs said. “It’s just a little early at this point.”

For Brown, a retired Navy worker, and his wife Lola, the project is the most recent example of a losing battle to preserve local agricultural land.

“It used to be that you came over the Conejo Grade and you could see all this fertile farmland,” Brown said. “Now it’s all a blaze of lights and asphalt, and you can never go back to what it was.”