Greenbelt Issue Heads to Fall Ballot

Ventura voters will decide this November whether to protect farmland from development, following the City Council’s decision late Monday to place the greenbelt initiative on the ballot rather that enact the law on its own.

County elections officials last week qualified a measure for the ballot circulated by scores of environmentalists who want to ensure that the area’s agricultural lands never get paved over.

Last month, supporters of the initiative--called Save Our Agricultural Resources--turned over nearly 9,000 signatures to the Ventura City Council, prompting the panel to either enact the measure into law or place it on the fall ballot.

Petition organizers needed 5,906 signatures to qualify the measure, and elections officials certified almost 6,600.

“I don’t think we have a choice,” Councilman Gregory L. Carson said before Monday’s meeting. “I won’t enact it, but I will support placing it on the ballot.”

The measure is similar to another initiative that already has qualified for the ballot. That greenbelt initiative would require voters--not the seven-member City Council--to approve zoning changes.

But since that measure has not yet been tested in court, organizers circulated a second initiative that is modeled after a Northern California law that was upheld in court earlier this year.

That measure also would protect farmland within Ventura and its sphere of influence by limiting changes to the comprehensive plan, the city’s long-term planning document.

Council members directed the city attorney to draft a resolution placing the measure on the November ballot.