Oxnard OKs Shopping Center by Freeway : Development: Despite Camarillo’s threats to sue over traffic concerns, the City Council approves the sprawling Rose Avenue retail complex.

Ignoring veiled threats of a lawsuit by Camarillo, the Oxnard City Council has approved construction of another shopping center along the Ventura Freeway despite complaints that it would create traffic problems for neighboring cities.

After a rambling two-hour discussion that began Tuesday shortly before midnight, council members approved 5 to 0 the first phase of Shopping at the Rose II--a 223,000-square-foot retail complex at Rose Avenue.

“Let the games begin,” said Councilman Tom Holden, referring to what he said is an inevitable lawsuit by Camarillo. He contended that economic motivations, and not traffic concerns, are at the heart of Camarillo’s opposition.

“Litigation is coming,” Holden said. “They are going to do whatever they can to stop the project.”

Officials from Camarillo, Ventura and the California Department of Transportation have contested the city’s recent finding that the proposed shopping center would have an insignificant impact on traffic west of the Conejo Grade.

Before an Oxnard committee approved plans for the development last month, Camarillo officials said Oxnard was leaving itself open to litigation by not properly studying the shopping center’s traffic problems and solving them.

And Camarillo City Manager Bill Little sent the Oxnard City Council a last-minute letter this week, asking the city not to approve Shopping at the Rose II and insisting that Camarillo would refuse to pay any part of the bill for road improvements.

Under state law, if the Rose Avenue area is deemed a regional traffic problem, it would be the responsibility of all west county cities to fix the situation, Camarillo officials say.

“The city of Camarillo has been acting responsibly by providing financial plans for the reconstruction of interchanges within the city of Camarillo,” Little wrote, “and we are not at all interested in helping to financially solve the city of Oxnard’s interchange problems.”

The Oxnard council, after discussing its chances of being sued with attorneys and developer Stanley Rothbart, decided to let the project move forward. Camarillo will sue regardless, they concluded.

City lawyer Jim Rupp told the council that its approval may not stand up in court because the city had not done enough to solve area traffic problems before allowing the project.

But Councilman Andres Herrera said the city’s strategy makes common sense.

“Sometimes, even if the law is there, you have to do what is right,” Herrera said. “And besides, we have Rothbart’s money to defend us.”

As part of his agreement with the city, Rothbart, who built the original Shopping at the Rose in 1992, agreed to pay all legal fees resulting from lawsuits filed against Oxnard due to Shopping at the Rose II.

“I feel somewhat like I’m at the wrong place at the wrong time, caught in a cross-fire,” said Rothbart, who has met with Camarillo officials several times in past weeks, trying to resolve the dispute.

Rothbart maintains that his project resolves all traffic problems it creates by making traffic wait longer at the lights near the freeway and Rose Avenue, and creating extra traffic lanes for cars to wait in.

But officials from neighboring cities say the highway off-ramps at Rose Avenue--built for farming traffic about 30 years ago--are overburdened, and the two-lane bridge that passes over the freeway has already exceeded capacity.

Rupp told council members that Camarillo may sue not only to stop Shopping at the Rose II, but to block all development in Oxnard near the freeway until a new overpass is built.

Oxnard is planning to build new freeway ramps and an overpass at Rose by the year 2000 for about $18 million. Most of the money would come from an assessment district that includes the new projects near the freeway.

But Ventura County officials have notified the city that its plan is premature because it has not yet formed the assessment district.

Under the agreement approved Tuesday, Rothbart will begin construction on a 45,000-square-foot store for Best Buy, a discount appliance retailer. Rothbart told the council that under his agreement with the retailer, he had to complete the store by the end of the year or face penalties. The full project would include three large stores and several smaller shops.

Since Camarillo first expressed its concerns last month, Oxnard officials have come up with their plan to keep the project moving, while also trying to protect the city against legal action.

The City Council decided to approve the project in phases to allow Rothbart to meet his deadline with Best Buy. As the first phase is being constructed, city officials would draft a more lawsuit-proof environmental report in anticipation of a Camarillo suit. The rest of the project would only be approved after the new document is written.

“If the question is, ‘Do we pass muster if this document is challenged in court?’ ” Rupp told the council, “I still think we run a significant risk.”

But Herrera said he thought the council had come up with a reasonable compromise.

“I’ve been trying to massage this as much as possible to see if this can work,” Herrera said. “I think it can.”