Developer Seeks Planners’ OK of Shopping Center : Camarillo: The commission will consider the complex, to be anchored by a Target store, at Las Posas Road and the Ventura Freeway.

Seeking to expand Camarillo’s limited retail market, a developer today will ask the city’s Planning Commission to approve a 39-acre shopping center at Las Posas Road and the Ventura Freeway.

The shopping center, which would be anchored by a 116,000-square-foot Target department store, would also house several other large retailers and a handful of restaurants, according to Reed Henkelman, a Coldwell Banker vice president who is coordinating the center’s lease arrangements.

The other stores would include a Ross Dress for Less, a Bed, Bath and Beyond, a home electronics store and four other retailers.

“This a good project for the city and for the developers,” Henkelman said. “The city has suffered from a fair amount of retail leakage in recent years. We think this project will go a long way toward stopping people from having to drive out of the city to get the products they want.”

Henkelman said that Camarillo has one of the lowest retail spending rates per capita in the county at an estimated $3,900 annually, compared to $11,000 per person in Ventura and $6,000 per person in Oxnard. The countywide average is about $5,600 per person.

Planning Commission Chairman Les Meredith had no comment on the development, proposed by the Orange County-based investment partnerships of JB2H and Norcan Inc., but commissioner William Liebmann said he generally supported the project.

Liebmann said his main concern is on the placement of a gas station on the parcel’s southeast corner. Because a Camarillo Airport flight path lies over the corner, he said he wondered whether the gas station should be built elsewhere on the parcel.

“Aside from that, it would appear to be a fairly well-balanced proposal that I believe I can support,” Liebmann said.

An aviation consultant’s report made public last year estimated the chances of a plane crashing into one of the new developments around the airport at one mishap every 75 years.

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The commission will also consider a request by a Camarillo developer to build 59 houses on a 60-acre parcel near Los Coyotes Place and Calle Dia in the city’s eastside.

The developer, Harout Keshmeshian, proposes to develop the hilly site whose lots would measure at least 20,000 square feet each.

City planning staff members have endorsed the proposal but expressed concern that because two earthquake faults run across the property, final placement of the homes should be delayed until grading on the site is started.

Matthew Boden, director of planning and community development, said the terraced site has already been zoned for such development, has similar housing developments abutting it and was farmed by previous tenants.

Because of those facts, Boden said, his office is recommending against requiring a full environmental review.

Nearby residents, however, said the site has not been farmed recently, and plants and wildlife have established habitats that now stand to be destroyed by the development.

“I find the proposed project does have significant effects on the environment,” said neighbor Robert P. Radnoti in a letter to city officials. “An environmental impact report (should be) required.”

Resident Lloyd T. Crumrine said he too is concerned about the project’s noise, dust and impact on wildlife. Crumrine urged officials to take whatever steps were necessary to minimize the impact of the project on the wildlife and residents.

“I believe that most residents of this area expected that someday the hilltop would be developed and I personally do not object” to its development, Crumrine stated. “However, I think it is the responsibility of the builder to be a good neighbor and the responsibility of the city to ensure that this happens.”

If approved by the Planning Commission, the projects would come before the City Council for final approval this spring.

The commission will meet at 7:30 tonight at City Hall, 601 Carmen Drive.