Farmland Safeguards to Be Studied : Growth: County supervisors form a task force to review guidelines that keep development within or near city boundaries.

Concerned about protecting dwindling farmland, Ventura County supervisors agreed Tuesday to form a task force to re-examine their development policies to ensure that the board effectively guards against runaway growth.

The task force will include Supervisors Maggie Kildee and Judy Mikels as well as representatives from each of the county’s 10 cities.

The purpose of the group will be to review and possibly revise the county’s Guidelines for Orderly Development, a 26-year-old policy that calls for keeping inevitable urban development within or adjacent to city boundaries.

“The guidelines have been in place for a long time and have served us very well,” Kildee said. “But we need to be clear on what they say, and have some discussion on whether there should be any changes.”

Mikels said she welcomed the policy review, but cautioned that there can be no guarantees against development in certain areas of the county, even on farmland.

“Nothing is absolute in land planning and land-use decisions,” she said.

Still, Mikels said one issue the task force might want to reconsider is the county’s definition of “rural,” which now only allows for one residence per acre. She said with larger houses being built today such a definition may no longer be appropriate.

The idea for the task force was proposed by the Assn. of Ventura County Cities--a committee of local mayors--in response to a developer’s proposal to build houses on farmland in Somis.

Although Knightsbridge Holdings, a British development company, has yet to win final approval for its project, a majority of supervisors have agreed to let the developer apply for a zoning change that would allow the construction of 189 houses on a 195-acre parcel. Kildee and Supervisor Susan K. Lacey voted against that request.

The Knightsbridge proposal has prompted angry protests from neighbors, who say that if the housing project is allowed to go forward it would open the floodgates for more development on county farmland.

Mikels, who supported the developer’s request, said she did so because it did not violate the county’s existing development guidelines. She said current guidelines encourage keeping urban development within cities but make no reference to rural development, which would allow the Knightsbridge proposal.

Nevertheless, Mikels said Knightsbridge is facing a number of environmental obstacles and there is no guarantee it will win approval for its project.

Supervisors stressed Tuesday that the task force will not address the Knightsbridge proposal, but rather would discuss future development policies.

Meanwhile, Keith Turner, the county’s planning director, said this would not be the first time the county’s development guidelines have been revised. He said the guidelines, adopted in 1969, were updated once in 1976 and again in 1985.