County Population Rises a Moderate 1.4% for Fiscal Year

Ventura County’s population grew by 1.4% last fiscal year--a moderate rate that signals a reasonably fit economy but does not foretell a swift return to boom times, analysts said Wednesday.

For the first time in three years, Ventura County’s population expanded faster than the state average. Births accounted for most of the growth, but migration also helped: 1,748 new residents joined county ranks during the fiscal year ending June 30.

In contrast to Ventura County’s slow but steady growth, neighboring Los Angeles County’s population inched up just 0.5%. And California’s total population increased at its slowest rate in more than two decades--only 1.2%, according to a report issued by the state Department of Finance.

Based on Ventura County’s 1.4% population increase, state demographic experts classified the region as “low growth.” Local analysts agreed with that assessment, saying that the county needs more rapid growth to stimulate the construction industry and boost the regional economy.

“We need to get up around 3% (annual growth) before I feel comfortable,” said Carolyn Leavens, a citrus rancher and president of the Ventura County Economic Development Assn.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean we need to pave over our county--we’ve got a lot of refilling to do, a lot of empty businesses and empty homes,” Leavens added.

Already, county residents filled more than 8,200 vacant homes during the 1994 calendar year, according to Nima Nattagh, an analyst with TRW REDI Property Data.

But they also bought 1,649 new homes, creating work for architects, carpenters and other professionals. New homes accounted for nearly 17% of the county’s total housing sales--the highest percentage in four years.

In another bit of good news for the construction industry, overall home sales reached a five-year high. Nattagh estimated that 9,902 homes were sold in the county this year--a 12% increase over last year.

This year’s tally marks the best year for home sales since 1989, when nearly 14,000 houses changed hands in Ventura County.

“It looks like the housing market is beginning to come back,” said Dee Zinke, a spokeswoman for the Building Industry Assn. “We’re hopeful that 1995 will be a better year for construction.”

Of course, a better year for construction means a worse year for slow-growth activists.

They worry that more people inevitably bring with them more pollution, more traffic, more crime. Eventually, they fear, the rural atmosphere that lures so many newcomers to Ventura County will vanish, replaced by a web of look-alike subdivisions and blocky industrial parks.

“I know they want the money to keep everything going, but on the other hand, it’s unfortunate to lose all these precious (resources), which are irreplaceable,” said Cynthia Leake of the Ventura County Environmental Coalition.

Even a moderate 1.4% population increase may be too high, she said.

“I live in Camarillo and I’m just appalled at what’s happening to the ag land and habitat” that is paved over by development, Leake added. “It makes me very, very sad.”

To Leavens, however, such reasoning is shortsighted--and dead wrong. Without growth, the county will become one giant, stagnant bedroom community, passively serving a more dynamic Los Angeles, she said.

“We want the kind of growth that indicates a surge in new businesses which attract well-educated people to highly paid positions,” Leavens said.

Compared to the growth she envisions, Leavens called the county’s 1.4% expansion rate “hardly more than a blip.”

Real estate analyst Nattagh agreed: “Compared to the state as a whole, Ventura County showed a fairly healthy increase. But compared to historical averages, the growth was fairly low.”

Ventura County’s population surged by an average of 2.5% in the 1980s, then dipped to a low of 1.1% for the fiscal year ending in June of 1993.

With 713,400 residents, Ventura County ranks as California’s 12th most populous county, behind San Francisco and Fresno. But in terms of growth rate, the county placed just 35th out of the 58 California counties in the last fiscal year.

The fastest-growing county was Imperial, which notched a 6.4% population increase. The central mountain counties of Mono, Placer and Calaveras also expanded rapidly.

Closer to home, Santa Barbara matched Ventura County’s rate of 1.4%, while San Luis Obispo County grew by 2%, according to the state report.

The Department of Finance bases its population estimates on data such as births, deaths, school enrollment, voter registration rolls, driver’s license applications, address changes and auto registrations.