Obstacle to Renewal : Oxnard Finds Only 4 Neighborhoods Out of 15 Back Redevelopment

In the fading neighborhoods that make up the heart of Oxnard, residents have long clamored for an infusion of life--a showering of city money to modernize aging communities and restore their former charm.

Oxnard’s response had always been that it did not have money to fix eroding roads and sidewalks, much less fund the more costly projects necessary to renovate the city’s old neighborhoods.

But in 1993, Oxnard officials began work on an ambitious plan to revitalize about one-third of the city’s business districts and residential neighborhoods by forming a sprawling redevelopment zone along Oxnard Boulevard and Saviers Road.

City officials envisioned that the redevelopment area would net hundreds of millions in tax increment dollars over 40 years, and the money would be used to resuscitate Oxnard’s withering core.

Yet as the plan enters its final study phase, city leaders concede that it has encountered an increasingly burdensome obstacle: Most people in the area are strongly opposed to any form of redevelopment.

Of the 15 neighborhoods in the proposed area, only four have voted to embrace redevelopment. Because the Oxnard City Council pledged not to include any neighborhood in the zone that does not wish to take part, it must decide in coming months if the plan can be salvaged.

“We have a problem,” Mayor Manuel Lopez said. “I think the business people want it, but you have to do what is in the best interest of the city. You cannot force this on people.”

Oxnard has already established four redevelopment areas: the crime-plagued Southwinds neighborhood, Ormond Beach, downtown as well as the area immediately surrounding downtown. An independent auditing firm last year estimated the city’s long-term redevelopment debt, from bonds and other redevelopment costs, at $25.7 million.

Critics of the most recent version of the proposed redevelopment zone say it would benefit developers--especially real estate magnate Martin V. (Bud) Smith and his Wagon Wheel complex--more than the residents of Oxnard.

Smith has unveiled plans to turn the Wagon Wheel area--centered around a bowling alley and motel at the Ventura Freeway and Pacific Coast Highway--into a massive office, residential and entertainment complex. Some residents say they believe that the redevelopment plan was created to help the developer pay his street, sewer and landscaping costs.

“It is designed specifically to benefit the Wagon Wheel area,” said Robert Cote of Oxnard, a former aide to Supervisor John K. Flynn. “These other areas are only included for their taxes. . . . Anyone who knows anything about redevelopment can see that.”

Other residents say that Smith simply has a lot of old-fashioned political pull in Oxnard, and that he will see that his needs are met before those of everybody else.

“I know Smith is going to have a hell of a lot more influence over how redevelopment money is going to be spent than a little neighborhood,” said Eleanor Branthoover, chairwoman of Oxnard’s Rio Lindo neighborhood council. “He has a lot of influence.”

Representatives from Martin V. Smith & Associates declined to comment on the redevelopment area.

Richard Maggio, the city’s director of community development, said the Wagon Wheel complex, built in the 1940s and ‘50s, is run-down and needs a major overhaul. Even a relatively new shopping center next to the Wagon Wheel has a 90% vacancy rate, he said.

“The planning there is functionally obsolete,” Maggio said. “You wouldn’t build something like that (a motel and bowling alley) there today near the freeway.”

But Maggio said there is no specific effort by Oxnard to benefit Smith, arguing that he coincidentally happens to be a large property owner in a blighted area.

In fact, city officials have met with Smith and his staff, and the developer is not yet sold on redevelopment, Maggio said.

The redevelopment zone would also include two financially ailing office parks, the Oxnard Town Center and the Maulhardt Industrial Center. Both were intended to be major projects but remain largely undeveloped.

Oxnard officials say one of the goals of the redevelopment plan is to upgrade badly clogged intersections along the Ventura Freeway--the Pacific Coast Highway and Rose and Rice avenue connectors--to allow for further growth along the city’s most vibrant business corridor.

Taxes from the new businesses would be poured into the older neighborhoods, said Dena Garcia, Oxnard’s redevelopment project manager.

But critics of redevelopment say recent retail complexes such as Shopping at the Rose and the Oxnard Factory Outlet have caused the traffic glut. They argue that developers did not contribute their fair share of road and sewer costs and, as a consequence, Oxnard’s residents are being asked to foot the bill through redevelopment.

Branthoover, a 30-year Oxnard resident, said she and her neighbors preferred the lemon orchards that once surrounded their community to the strip malls that now make up the northeast section of the city.

“We didn’t ask for Shopping at the Rose,” Branthoover said. “We didn’t ask for St. John’s (Regional Medical Center). We didn’t ask for all these neighborhoods that have been built. So we don’t know why we should have to contribute to fixing the traffic conditions.”

Rebuilding the intersections and widening the bottlenecked Santa Clara bridge is expected to cost well above $100 million, and Oxnard is hoping to use redevelopment money to pay its share, according to a city report. The improvements would also be funded by the state Department of Transportation and the city of Ventura.

Some community leaders say the Oxnard’s true motives for the plan became evident when city officials chose to exclude La Colonia--one of the poorest, most blighted sections of the city--from the redevelopment area.

La Colonia was originally part of the proposal, but was removed last year after a busload of neighborhood residents charged into a City Council meeting and angrily protested redevelopment, Maggio said.

Carlos Aguilera, chairman of La Colonia’s neighborhood council, said the protest was orchestrated by property owners worried that redevelopment would cut into their profits. As a result, he said, La Colonia’s 10,000 residents were denied the opportunity to vote on redevelopment through their neighborhood council.

“I feel that the city did not do its job,” Aguilera said. “Frankly, I feel the entire community is being shortchanged.”

Oxnard is not required to hold any meetings on redevelopment or obtain approval from neighborhood councils to move forward with its plans, but does so as a courtesy to its residents, Garcia said. She added that although La Colonia did not have a formal neighborhood council meeting on redevelopment, a meeting in the area was held.

Former Oxnard City Manager Vernon Hazen, in a much-criticized deal, was hired by the city as a consultant and paid $10,000 to tour neighborhoods and provide information on redevelopment. He visited La Colonia but was not well-received, city officials said.

“They scared Mr. Hazen away, the slumlords here in this community,” Aguilera said. “They stole the opportunity from the rest of us who at least wanted to hear the presentation.”

But Harold Ceja, who headed La Colonia’s neighborhood council for 17 years before Aguilera, said residents have long been opposed to redevelopment.

“The people of La Colonia will never let redevelopment in,” Ceja said. “We do not want people to lose their homes or their property.”

For some Oxnard residents, the word redevelopment elicits images of bulldozers, condemned buildings and projects such as Chavez Ravine in Los Angeles, where an entire community was uprooted to make way for Dodger Stadium.

Others say they need look no further than Oxnard’s own redevelopment history to find fodder for criticism. The infamous attempt to turn downtown Oxnard’s A Street into an outdoor plaza is cited by many as an example of the city’s botched redevelopment schemes.

Oxnard redevelopment officials in the 1960s decided to close A Street to traffic, erecting large barriers around the aging shopping district to make it more mall-like.

The plan was a disaster. There was no parking in the area other than in front of the stores, and frustrated shoppers went elsewhere, driving many longtime merchants out of business.

After a torrent of protests, city officials decided to fix the problem--agreeing to remove the barriers by charging the remaining business owners for the cost--through an assessment district.

Today, city leaders say the entire episode was a mistake. But the damage has been done, residents say.

“The neighbors in my area are still upset with what happened in the past,” said Nancy Pederson, chairwoman of the Cal Gisler neighborhood council. “We had a close to unanimous vote to stay out (of redevelopment).”

Lopez believes that the redevelopment plan would benefit most of the neighborhoods. He blames Hazen and the city’s redevelopment staff for doing a poor job of presenting it to the public. Hazen could not be reached for comment.

“The process of redevelopment has not been sold to the people,” Lopez said. “And I don’t see anyone on the staff capable of selling it, to be honest.”

State law requires that 20% of redevelopment money be spent on affordable housing, and advocates of low-cost homes say the redevelopment plan could help relieve Oxnard’s lack of affordable housing. But the city’s record of using redevelopment money for housing is dismal, said attorney Eileen McCarthy of California Rural Legal Assistance.

“I would be hopeful that in the city’s efforts, there would be a change from the city’s 15-year history of not constructing housing for low-income people,” McCarthy said. “Various people on the City Council have expressed . . . that they would like to go in a new direction.”

But some residents say the affordable housing requirement makes redevelopment less appealing. They argue that low-cost homes would cause property values to drop and would likely bring undesirable people into their neighborhoods.

“It would tend to degrade the neighborhood,” said John P. Ford, a resident of College Park Estates, a 40-year-old tract that is part of the Rio Lindo community.

The Oxnard City Council will review a report on the redevelopment plan in the next few months, Maggio said. If the council chooses to move forward with the proposal, members will make the final decision on the plan by the end of the year, he said.