Oxnard May End Planning Commission : Construction: Officials are urging City Council to replace the panel with a hearing officer to speed the permit process.

Responding to complaints from developers that the Oxnard Planning Commission is a body of amateurs that does nothing but slow progress, city officials are recommending that the City Council do away with it forever.

Council members on Tuesday will consider dissolving the Planning Commission, along with the city’s Environmental Quality Protection Commission, and replacing them with a single hearing officer, preferably a planning expert.

“Some of the developers have complained that the pipeline gets clogged, and their projects are slowed down. . .,” City Atty. Gary Gillig said. “The fact of the matter is that planning commissioners are not lawyers or experts.”

Planning Commissioner Arthur Joe Lopez said Thursday night that he was shocked by the sudden move to get rid of the five-member board. “I’m very surprised,” said Lopez, after learning of the plan from a reporter. “I have not heard from anybody and I had just met with Mayor (Manuel) Lopez and Councilman (Andres) Herrera the other day.”

Lopez said dissolving the Planning Commission would take away a vital system of checks and balances, leaving a handful of people--namely the City Council--holding the reins of power in Oxnard.

“The Planning Commission has always served as the public’s voice on development issues,” Lopez said. “We need more public input, not less. No administrator can replace a planning commission.”

In recent years, the commission has been more aggressive than the City Council in pushing to preserve open space and build affordable housing.

Oxnard Mayor Manuel Lopez said he was also unaware of the proposal until Friday. He said that he supports cutting city government, but that dramatic changes such as dissolving the Planning Commission should be reviewed with caution.

“It seems to me that we need a planning commission,” said Lopez, adding that the commission has been doing a fine job. “I’m going to look at this real closely to see what is being proposed.”

Under the plan, a hearing officer would certify environmental reports and process permits like planning commissioners do, and hold public hearings as frequently as the Planning Commission has, if not more often, Gillig said.

But the hearing officer would perform more efficiently, leaving less of an opportunity for naysayers to disrupt the development process without good cause, said City Planner Matthew Winnegar.

“Having a person who has some training in proper procedures would be more expeditious than a committee of five people,” Winnegar said. “What we want to avoid is people using the planning process merely as an element to delay a project.”

Winnegar said he and other city officials suggested doing away with the Planning Commission now because there is only one member, Albert Duff, whose term is not expiring or who does not have a conflict of interest because he has been elected to another office. Arthur Joe Lopez was recently elected to the Oxnard School District board.

Furthermore, Oxnard is in the process of changing its zoning ordinance--the first comprehensive revision in almost 50 years. The concept of a hearing officer has been discussed for years by city officials as a way to simplify the permit process, Winnegar said.

The zoning revisions will also result in more public hearings. They are expected to go before the City Council next spring, he said.

According to a city report, doing away with the Planning Commission would reduce the average processing time for development permits by two to four weeks. It would also result in an 80% to 90% decrease in appeals to the City Council and reduce the time it takes to process an environmental report by six months, the report states.

Louis J. Malone, president of the regional division of the Baldwin Co., an Irvine-based developer that wants to build 5,000 homes at Ormond Beach, said dissolving the Planning Commission would help developers move projects through the city more smoothly.

Malone recently complained that the environmental report for the developer’s 435-unit Village West project took much too long to be certified: 15 months.

“Anything that would speed up the process would be good,” Malone said, adding that the proposal would probably help the developer’s Ormond Beach plans. “There are other cities that do that, and it seems to work better.”

Among the municipalities using hearing officers to perform duties traditionally done by planning commissions are Burbank, Kern County, and Santee in San Diego County, according to a city report.

Council members Tuesday will also consider establishing a community development commission, which would take on the duties of the Oxnard Redevelopment Agency.

The commission would pursue redevelopment in accordance with city goals such as attracting tourism and boosting the Oxnard economy, said Dena Garcia, the city’s redevelopment project manager.