Holding Pattern : Fate of Oxnard and Camarillo Airports Could Hang on Point Mugu Proposal

Each day a proud greeting awaits passengers arriving in short-hop commuter planes at Ventura County’s only commercial airport. A plastic banner wired to a chain-link fence makes the Oxnard Airport pledge: “Service and Convenience into the 21st Century.”

But with total flights in a 10-year slump and development squeezing in from the sides, the fate of the county-run airport appears less certain than the cheerful banner suggests.

Oxnard Airport has lost money for years. And now, a plan to fly passenger planes out of the Naval Air Weapons Station at Point Mugu has raised questions about whether it has a future beyond the next few years.

“Oxnard could be doing better,” said Rod Murphy, administrator of Oxnard Airport and a second county-run field in Camarillo. “The most important goal right now is to maintain commuter service.”

Unlike its poor cousin, Camarillo Airport is flourishing. And unlike Oxnard, the Camarillo Airport could actually end up benefiting from commercial airline service at Point Mugu.

The airport complex at Camarillo is three times the size of the Oxnard site, and twice as busy. Hobbyists and weekend pilots flock there, stacking up along the runway to await their turns to take off.

Together, the two airports account for nearly 85% of all the non-military flights in the county each year. They house more than 700 small planes, cover nearly 900 acres and raise about $2.8 million through landing fees, hangar rentals and industrial leases.

But Oxnard has struggled to keep pilots and passengers for many years, padding its budget with federal grants and leaching profits from Camarillo Airport. By itself, Oxnard is expected to lose $116,000 this fiscal year, while Camarillo projects a profit of $576,000. Neither airport receives any money from the county.

Traditionally, Oxnard Airport has relied on its status as Ventura County’s sole provider of passenger service. Even that has been hit-and-miss. Boardings dropped from a high of 49,275 in 199O to 22,767 in 1992, before climbing again last year to 39,989. Yet, overall flights--both takeoffs and landings--dropped from 152,000 in 1990 to 95,000 last year.

And some of the staunchest Oxnard supporters say they do not know how much longer Oxnard can hold out against the squeeze of urban development and forces that are pushing Ventura County toward a new era of aviation.

What eventually happens at Point Mugu is the key to Oxnard’s fortunes.

Analysts say that converting the Navy base’s world-class runways to passenger service would not automatically kill commuter flights at Oxnard. But they also caution that the new airport could not do well if Oxnard continued to ferry passengers to Los Angeles International Airport.

United Express, a commuter airline at Oxnard, is wary of a move to Point Mugu. “Our No. 1 priority is keeping our costs down,” spokeswoman Sarah Pitcher-Sproul said. “Mugu would probably be a lot more expensive.”

But other Oxnard tenants say they think the future may be elsewhere.

Steve Hazen, president of Oxnard Aircraft Service, the airport’s primary service station, said he would eagerly jump ship if there were more money to be made at Point Mugu.

“Oxnard still has some good years of life left in it,” Hazen said. “But eventually, I see it getting killed, either by development or by Point Mugu.”

Oxnard Councilman Andres Herrera, who serves on the Oxnard Airport Authority, says he will fight to keep the airport alive. But he also fears its death may be inevitable.

“In the long term, there has to be that flexibility (to shut down Oxnard Airport) if it’s for the greater good,” he said.

As with most airports in growing communities, creeping development is also the enemy at Oxnard. Already the field is besieged by growth, as symbolized by a new McDonald’s restaurant constructed near the end of the runway despite pilot protests.

“The McDonald’s is in a horrible place,” said county Supervisor John Flynn, who serves on the Oxnard and Camarillo airport authorities. “Everybody knows that Oxnard Airport is not going to survive if this type of development is allowed to continue.”

Indeed, new stores and houses are beginning to hem in the airport, ruling out any major expansion beyond the current 14 daily round-trip flights to Los Angeles. Passenger jets with more than 30 seats--compared to the 19-seat turboprops now in use--would not be allowed because of noise and safety concerns.

In addition to McDonald’s, the 200-home Patterson Park tract immediately south of the airport was approved in 1993, despite opposition from then-county Airports Administrator Marshall MacKinen.

More recently, the Oxnard City Council has approved construction of an Albertson’s supermarket, a gas station, shopping center and a 56-home tract--all within a block of the airport. And the city is considering another housing tract that would put 184 more homes next to Patterson Park.

“I think we’re all sick and tired of complaining about it,” said Wally Boeck, a pilot on the county’s Aviation Advisory Commission. “At this point I think we can all see that development has gained the upper hand in Oxnard.”

Camarillo Airport, located along the fast-growing Ventura Freeway corridor, is facing similar development pressures. Shops, restaurants and offices are slated for construction on farmland that now buffers the airport.

A 12-screen Edwards Cinemas and an outlet mall recently opened about one-quarter mile from the airport and just north of its flight path. Two more shopping centers are planned even closer, including a Target center approved recently by the Camarillo City Council over objections from some pilots and residents.

The construction has led critics to question whether the airport will remain safe. The new buildings will cover farmland where pilots could once abort failed takeoffs and landings.

There have been 23 crashes at or near Camarillo Airport in the last decade. But city officials have reassured critics, citing a study that found the chance of a plane crash on the Target site to be one every 75 years.

Both Oxnard and Camarillo airports began as lonely airstrips, intentionally built on farmland apart from those communities. But as farms were covered with homes, freeways and shopping centers, both airports became embroiled in nasty disputes over their effects on the cities now at their doorsteps.

Built by the Air Force at the beginning of World War II, the Camarillo field survived a legal battle that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

County leaders wanted to exploit the military castoff, but angry homeowners and city officials were determined to close the airport forever.

After the county prevailed in 1976, the airport quickly attracted hundreds of pilots and began raking in revenue by leasing vacant military buildings to eager tenants.

Oxnard Airport has not been as controversial, or as fortunate.

The field opened in 1934 as Ventura County Airport. It soon became a favorite landing strip of moneyed residents and free-wheeling pilots such as Howard Hughes, who pitched a tent to house one of his racing planes.

In 1946, flights to Los Angeles and San Francisco launched the airport’s five-decade foray into passenger service. For years, the airport flourished, primarily as a landing field for private pilots and a sporadic provider of passenger flights.

A Federal Aviation Administration control tower was built in 1960, and a new terminal in 1971. In 1973, Oxnard recorded its first fatality when a pilot was killed after a highly touted experimental plane crafted from a Ford Pinto and a Cessna Skymaster crashed shortly after takeoff.

That was one of only a few accidents at the field. Oxnard has recorded just four crashes and one fatality in the last 10 years.

But safety has not meant success.

On a recent morning, two control tower operators at Oxnard Airport kept an eye on the empty runway below as they chatted idly over the din of pop music on the radio. Under a nationwide program to cut costs at small airports, the FAA is pulling its operators out of Oxnard in September, replacing them with controllers from a private company.

In the dimly lit, bus-station-like terminal, a lone passenger stretched out to wait for his commuter flight to Los Angeles.

Outside, mounds of toxic debris from an October fire that decimated one of the airport’s three commercial hangars remained unattended. The county Airports Department is arranging for proper cleanup of the asbestos and other hazardous waste.

From his tiny office at the base of the control tower, Operations Supervisor John Dodd gets a close-up view of runway traffic. A wall-sized aerial photograph reminds him of the big picture, complete with nearby development.

“Oxnard has never really held its own weight,” he said. “Up to this point, that’s just been a fact of life.”

Rod Murphy, hired as the county’s airports administrator six months ago, insists that Oxnard can prosper, regardless of Point Mugu’s fate. A lifelong pilot, he bursts with optimism as he outlines his vision for both county airfields.

It all begins with the 20-year master plan, a work-in-progress that includes an ambitious proposal to prop up Oxnard’s revenues by luring aircraft manufacturers. Murphy discounts possible concern by nearby homeowners over noise and fumes.

“An airport is an industrial park,” he said. “As far as we are concerned, the zoning allows for this type of activity.”

The Oxnard field has already undergone several federally funded improvements, including a $1.6-million runway resurfacing in 1991 and the recent $2-million purchase of five acres of adjacent farmland for a new business center or parking lot. And a new restaurant, run independently, is scheduled to open in the terminal this month.

With the help of federal funding, Murphy said he hopes to refurbish the terminal, build a new hangar big enough to accommodate corporate aircraft and install an automated parking lot to replace the existing one, which operates on the honor system. This year his agency has applied for $2.5 million to supplement the airport’s $740,000 annual budget and help pay for those projects.

But as federal policy-makers cut back on spending, grants from the federal Aviation Trust Fund are in jeopardy, and the local projects could be held up indefinitely.

The shortage of federal funds would not hinder daily operations, which are paid for with hangar fees and rent collected from hundreds of tenants at both airports--the vast majority at Camarillo. If the federal funds do come through, profits from leases at Camarillo would provide the required 10% local match.

“We are extremely fortunate to have the industrial park (at Camarillo),” Murphy said. “Without it there would be a question of whether the cost of running the airports would be a burden to the county worth bearing. The way it is now, we are in very good shape financially.”

Just one-sixth of the 650-acre Camarillo property is taken up by airport activities. The rest is leased to dozens of businesses and government agencies. And in the fiscal year that ends in June, $900,000 of Camarillo Airport’s $2.1-million budget will come from the industrial park.

Camarillo’s tenants include the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department, animal control kennels, correction services, the county superintendent of schools and the dispatch center for the Fire Department.

There are also a private trucking yard, a shooting range, a work furlough program, several private business offices and the headquarters of the Medfly spraying operation.

Camarillo houses 600 private planes and is the busiest airport in the county, handling about 542 takeoffs and landings a day. The skies buzz with tiny biplanes and sleek two-seaters.

Many of the flights are by the 100 local members of the Confederate Air Force. The thriving nationwide club devotes its considerable energies to restoring old military aircraft.

“They have generated a lot of activity by attracting others of their type,” Murphy said. “I think that is what has made this airport a success.”

One recent morning, the crack of guns at the shooting range pierced the hum of small planes overhead. Sheriff’s cadets clad in white T-shirts and navy blue shorts jogged past grazing horses.

The denizens of the industrial park hardly noticed when a four-seat Cessna Skyhawk came in too fast, screamed down the runway and flipped over in a patch of soft dirt nearby.

As the pilot squeezed through a crumpled door unharmed, takeoffs resumed, the crackle of rifle shots echoed across the runway and sheriff’s cadets kept on jogging.

“Occasionally, accidents do happen,” said Jeff Rountree, the airport’s operations supervisor. “We take every precaution to prevent this type of thing.”

Although the accident rates at Camarillo and Oxnard are relatively low, safety is a growing concern among some pilots and residents near both airports.

And, again, Point Mugu is part of the equation.

Passenger service from the base could further crowd the skies above Camarillo--the nexus for aircraft approaches to both small airports and the military base.

Camarillo Airport could be affected, in fact, whether passenger planes begin to fly from Mugu or not.

If the Navy base is a commercial success and Oxnard closes, Camarillo could be forced to absorb the 85,000 annual takeoffs and landings by small private planes.

But if the Point Mugu proposal fails, pressure to expand passenger service could shift to Camarillo, say both supporters and opponents of the Mugu plan.

No city or county master plan allows such activity. Nor is Camarillo suited by its proximity to mountains or its development patterns for airline use, said Hank Verbais, an FAA spokesman.

“Camarillo works best as a general aviation field,” he said.

But real estate investor Richard L. Fausset, a Mugu supporter, warns against dismissing the possibility of airline service.

“There are a lot of people who really don’t care if the airport is at Camarillo or Point Mugu,” Fausset said. “They want a real airport, and they’ll do what they have to do to make it happen.”

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Two Airports: Squeezed by Development

As with most airports in growing communities, both Oxnard and Camarillo face creeping development. At Oxnard Airport, the field is besieged by new shops and homes. And at Camarillo Airport, located along the fast-growing Ventura Freeway corridor, movie theaters and an outlet mall have opened--and two new shopping centers are planned on farmland that now buffers the field.

Source: Camarillo and Oxnard planning departments

Researched by SARA CATANIA / Los Angeles Times