Panel OKs Shopping Center Along Freeway : Oxnard: Land-use advisers back Rose Avenue retail complex. Critics say proposal fails to address expected traffic congestion.

Despite objections by neighboring cities and state highway officials, Oxnard’s new land-use panel has approved plans for another large shopping center along the Ventura Freeway.

The land-use advisers, a five-member panel created in January to replace the Oxnard Planning Commission, voted 4 to 1 to clear the way for Shopping at the Rose II--a 223,000-square-foot retail complex at Rose Avenue. It still requires City Council approval.

Before the vote, adviser Sonny Okada said the panel should not dwell on the increased traffic that would be generated by the development.

“I believe this land-use advisory was formed to facilitate development, and make it easier for developers to come to the city of Oxnard,” Okada said. “. . . I believe we ought to approve it.”

Several Camarillo officials, who attended the Thursday night meeting to protest what they saw as a lack of effort to deal with traffic congestion at the Rose Avenue-Ventura Freeway connector, shook their heads in disbelief.

“Oh my Lord,” said Dan Greeley, Camarillo’s director of engineering.

Greeley and other Camarillo officials warned Oxnard officials at the meeting that the city was leaving itself open to lawsuits for failing to address the traffic impact of Shopping at the Rose II. He said that Camarillo, however, had no plans to take legal action.

“This isn’t about, they sued us, so now we’re going to sue them,” Greeley said, referring to the lawsuit by Oxnard Chamber of Commerce member Stephen Maulhardt that delayed construction of Camarillo’s factory outlet mall. “There’s none of that here.”

Camarillo officials said that the proposed shopping center will affect traffic in the entire west county. Because of recent state laws, they argued, Oxnard’s traffic mess may be deemed a regional concern in the future, and Camarillo may have to help pay to fix it.

Albert Duff, the Oxnard panel member who cast the only no vote, said beforehand that Oxnard leaders were apparently in denial of the high costs of rebuilding the city’s overburdened roads and connectors around the Ventura Freeway.

“We can’t keep delaying the inevitable,” Duff said. “And that’s what I see we’re doing.”

He said some development in Oxnard has not paid its way, and that “the citizenry is going to pay that tab.”

Officials from Ventura, Camarillo and the California Department of Transportation have all written letters to Oxnard contesting the city’s finding that the proposed shopping center would have an insignificant effect on traffic west of the Conejo Grade.

Ventura and Camarillo both wrote that Oxnard’s environmental analysis of the project understated the amount of traffic that would travel through the Ventura Freeway-Rose Avenue connector, which was designed to accommodate farming traffic more than 30 years ago.

The El Rio/Del Norte Municipal Advisory Council wrote a letter charging that the Rose Avenue off-ramp on the east side of the freeway is a health and safety concern for neighborhood residents due to the incessant traffic from Shopping at the Rose, and that it must be repaired before more development takes place.

And Ventura County officials stated in a letter to Oxnard that the city’s plan to pay for improvements through an assessment district that has yet to be formed may not be feasible. Oxnard is planning to build a new connector around the year 2000, at a cost of about $18 million, city officials have said.

Rothbart Development, which built the Shopping at the Rose center, is looking to build the new shopping complex. It would consist of several small shops and restaurants, a gas station and three large stores, including Best Buy, a discount appliance retailer.

Eleven buildings currently located on the proposed site would have to be demolished to make way for the shopping center. In addition, three businesses, including a Bible college, would have to be relocated. Rothbart Development has said that it plans to help the businesses find a new location.