County’s Population Rise Highest Since 1991 : Growth: Ventura is the 15th fastest-expanding city in California, state figures for ’94 show. Report suggests improved economy in the area.

Slowly escaping a stubborn recession, Ventura County added 11,500 residents last year while growing faster than the region and the state for the first time in four years, according to new state figures.

The county’s population increased to 720,500 by Jan. 1, up 1.6% over the previous 12 months, the highest local growth rate since 1991, the state Department of Finance reported Thursday.

Most of the growth was in Ventura and Oxnard, with nearly one-third in Ventura alone.

In fact, a flurry of new housing construction spurred by an improving market and pent-up demand made Ventura the 15th fastest-growing city of the 470 in California.

Thousand Oaks and Camarillo also experienced sizable increases, while populations declined in Port Hueneme and the quake-damaged communities of Fillmore and Simi Valley.

“It looks like we’re gradually recovering from the down years,” said Steve Wood, a senior county planner. “It’s a reflection that businesses that remained in this county are adding new employees and some new businesses are moving in.”

Although Ventura County growth outstripped California’s in the 1980s, local increases had fallen below state and regional rates for four consecutive years.

Last year’s 1.6% jump compares to 0.9% in Southern California and a record-tying low of 1.2% for California as a whole.

The pace of local growth still ranked only 28th among the state’s 58 counties. But of the other five counties in this region, only Orange and Riverside counties grew faster.

Los Angeles County was most stagnant, with almost exactly the same population as in 1993. And the city of Los Angeles actually lost 23,500 residents, a sign of a continuing economic malaise.

“I think that also reflects a continuing move to the suburbs,” Wood said. “The people of Los Angeles County are still moving here.”

Ventura County’s population figures, however, reconfirm this area’s move out of recession. In March, employment figures showed 253,900 local jobs, up from 251,200 a year earlier and 242,000 in 1993. Home sales also jumped 12% in 1994, reaching a five-year high.

The new population numbers also show huge differences in growth from one local city to another.

Fillmore and Simi Valley, with hundreds of dwellings damaged or destroyed in the January, 1994, earthquake, lost 100 residents each last year.

“It’s very conceivable that people moved around as a result of the earthquake and some houses are gone,” Simi Valley Mayor Greg Stratton said.

Port Hueneme, bounded on all sides by Oxnard or the ocean, also lost 150 residents.

Ventura had by far the greatest gain, 3,600 people, to become the 50th California city with a population of at least 100,000.

Ventura’s construction boom, especially on the east end, accounted for about one-fourth of all the new homes in the county last year. But city officials said the spurt is an aberration not likely to repeat in 1995.

“It was a spike,” said Everett Millais, city community development director. “Last year we issued about 550 residential building permits, and that was more than we had issued in the preceding five years combined.”

The surge reflects an improving housing market and, to a lesser degree, demand built up by a citywide moratorium on new water hookups imposed during a drought that ended in 1993, Millais said.

About 150 residential building permits were taken out in Ventura the first four months of the current year, a one-fifth drop from a year ago, he said.

Even as home sales picked up, the affluent eastern county, with its pricey houses, added far fewer dwellings to its stock last year--just 129 in Simi Valley, 181 in Moorpark and 230 in Thousand Oaks, the county reports.

“It’s been pretty slow, but we’re starting to see a lot of development now,” Mayor Stratton said. “Building permits are being pulled and projects are in grading.”

There are similar trend indicators in the new state report, which shows a steady climb in population.

After growing at a 2.8% annual clip in the late 1980s, Ventura County’s rate bottomed out at 1.1% in fiscal 1992-93, a post-World War II low. It ticked up to 1.3% for all of 1993, improved to 1.4% in fiscal 1994 and was 1.6% for all of last year.

The county’s growth was so small in 1993, because--for the first time--more residents moved out of the county than moved in from other states and foreign countries.

That exodus slowed in 1994, with a net gain from migration of about 1,750 residents. The rest of the population increase occurred because local births outnumbered deaths 3-to-1, according to the state report.

The Department of Finance bases its twice-a-year population estimates on changes in such data as births, deaths, school enrollment, registered voters, driver’s licenses, address changes, registered autos, housing units and income tax returns.

* STATE TRENDS: B13

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County’s 1995 Population Estimates

Jan. 1 ’94 Jan. 1 ’95 % change Camarillo 56,600 58,500 3.4 Fillmore 12,950 12,850 -0.8 Moorpark 27,200 27,550 1.3 Ojai 7,925 8,150 2.8 Oxnard 152,000 154,600 1.7 Port Hueneme 21,900 21,750 -0.7 Santa Paula 26,900 27,100 0.7 Simi Valley 103,800 103,700 -0.1 Thousand Oaks 110,400 112,600 2.0 Ventura 97,100 100,700 3.7 Unincorporated 92,200 93,100 1.0 COUNTYWIDE 709,000 720,500 1.6

Source: State Department of Finance