City May Hire Adviser for K mart Plans : Development: Ventura council will consider paying a consultant to measure the project’s long-term benefits against granting a fee waiver.

With the promise of new sales tax revenue dangling before them, Ventura City Council members on Monday will consider hiring a consultant to analyze plans for a mega-K mart on Victoria Avenue.

The consultant, if hired by the city, would measure the project’s long-term profitability against the developer’s request for a waiver of $1.5 million in city fees. Those fees normally would go into city coffers for reducing problems with traffic and air quality.

Representatives from Lundin Development requested the waiver last month, saying the city’s share of sales tax from the Super K mart would more than make up for the concession. Without the waiver, they said, Ventura could lose the project to another city.

Councilman James L. Monahan said Friday that he supports the jumbo K mart--which would replace an existing K mart across the street--because of the potential income for the city and because it would develop land that has long sat vacant.

Monahan, who was elected to the council on a pro-business platform, compared the Super K mart to the proposed expansion of the Buenaventura Mall.

“These are both economic magnets that we need to nurture, so to speak,” he said. “The city is dying from the lack of sales tax revenues.”

In fact, the city’s sales tax income has leveled off during the past two years while Oxnard’s--Ventura’s chief economic rival--has climbed. Ventura’s sales tax revenue hovered at $12.7 million during the past two years, down from a peak of $14.3 million in 1990.

Some members of the Ventura council, however, say they have reservations about the project.

Councilman Gary R. Tuttle questions its aesthetic and environmental impact.

“I don’t really want to see a big square building on the top of the hill,” he said. “And I don’t want to see a parking lot spread out all the way up to it.”

Tuttle said he also has more philosophical concerns about dismissing large fees for developers in exchange for promises of future sales tax income.

Such arrangements have become increasingly common as cities in California have scrambled to boost declining or stagnant tax revenues.

Oxnard leaders, for example, agreed in 1992 to refund $2.4 million in sales tax to Wal-Mart to lure the retailer to the city.

“I am against the policy that gives away citizens’ tax dollars to guarantee private enterprise,” Tuttle said. “The bottom line is we’ve taken the risk out of being in business.”

However, Tuttle said he has made no decision on the overall project and would support authorizing an economic study paid for by the developer.

Councilwoman Rosa Lee Measures said she, too, wants the city to give the project a closer look. The study, she said, would look at various forms of financial assistance the city could offer the developer.

“We certainly need to determine the costs and benefits to the city,” she said.

The council is scheduled to vote on approving a study of the project when it meets at 7 p.m. Monday at City Hall on Poli Street.

The proposed Super K mart would sell groceries and discount merchandise seven days a week, 24 hours a day. In addition to K mart, the 221,000-square-foot complex on Victoria Avenue would include three smaller retailers.

Hurt by aggressive competition from Target and Wal-Mart, the Troy, Mich.-based K mart Corp. recently closed 110 stores and announced plans to cut 6,000 jobs. To compete better with its rivals, the company developed the Super K mart concept and began renovating older stores.