ELECTIONS / VENTURA GROWTH INITIATIVES : Businesses, Farmers Lining Up to Fight Greenbelt Measures

A flurry of political mailers is coming, showcasing the supercharged rhetoric over two measures on Ventura’s November ballot that could determine the pace of the city’s growth for a generation or more.

Measure I and Measure J are designed to halt urban expansion into thousands of acres of farmland in and around Ventura. If the measures are approved in the Nov. 7 election, the farmland could not sprout houses or other development for at least 35 years--without permission from a majority of city voters.

Given the far-reaching effects of the measures, their fate could resolve a core issue that pops up periodically in Ventura’s irrepressible debate over development:

Are the city’s fragrant lemon groves, lush avocado orchards and colorful croplands just awaiting their turn for new housing subdivisions? Or should they be protected as greenbelts to preserve Ventura’s rural feel?

The twin measures are being promoted under the banner Save Our Agricultural Resources by slow-growth activists. These environmentalists say they want to take control of these greenbelts from the City Council and give it to voters so Ventura does not become a ceaseless maze of stucco homes, strip malls and traffic lights.

“We don’t want to become another San Fernando Valley,” said Ventura Councilman Steve Bennett. “Council members receive significant financial contributions and cannot resist the steady pressure from developers. This is a citizen safeguard.”

The farmland-protection measures are being vigorously opposed by farmers, land owners and business leaders in a well-financed campaign with the theme “Don’t be fooled!”

These opponents say the measures violate farmers’ property rights, will cost the city millions of dollars to defend lawsuits and will chill urban growth needed to fuel the city’s economy.

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“This isn’t about protecting agricultural resources, it’s a no-growth initiative,” said Councilman Jack Tingstrom. “The proponents say the farmers are greedy. But these people are greedy. They are trying to take something that doesn’t belong to them.”

The debate over Ventura’s urban growth has dominated city politics since the early 1970s, when slow-growth candidates first managed to wrest control of the City Council from the pro-growth Chamber of Commerce.

The council has lurched back and forth since then, influenced by recessions and a fickle electorate that swings between pushing progress and preserving Ventura’s small-town quality of life.

Now that a growth spurt has made Ventura one of California’s fastest-growing cities and pushed its population to more than 100,000, it is no surprise that measures I and J are overshadowing this fall’s City Council elections.

Five of the dozen candidates favor the measures’ passage, although none of them were involved in getting them on the ballot. The city’s slow-growth activists said they were unable to recruit candidates from among their ranks to run for a seat on the council dominated by a pro-business majority.

Some view Measure I and Measure J as an ingenious, or perhaps devilish, way to challenge business leaders’ dominance at City Hall.

“Most of city politics are driven by the Chamber of Commerce,” said Bill Fulton, an urban-planning expert based in Ventura. “This is an attempt by some of the best political minds in our town to get the populace more deeply involved in the planning of this town.”

Fulton sees similarities between these measures and Proposition 13, the property-tax rollback that shook up the establishment. Like Proposition 13, these measures could have unintended, negative side effects, he said. They also seem to be on the leading edge of a political revolution, he said.

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Although Fulton has reservations about the measures and may vote against them, he believes they could create the opportunity to finally forge a community consensus on the city’s long-term plans.

“The problem is that most of the citizens are not involved in Ventura politics at all,” he said. “Maybe this town needs this kind of nuclear explosion at the ballot box to wake everybody up.”

The genesis of the two measures dates back 20 months, when pro-business members of this council first came into office. Within a few weeks, they began publicly entertaining proposals from developers to build in the inner-city greenbelt in east Ventura.

The council’s aggressive, pro-growth direction stirred up a firestorm of protests from east Ventura residents. They were incensed that the council would even consider amending the city’s Comprehensive Plan, which specifically set the greenbelt off-limits to development until the year 2010.

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One proposal by developer Ron Hertel to build 437 homes on a city-owned lemon orchard so outraged neighboring homeowners Sheri and Bruce Vincent that they decided to do something about it.

They hired former Mayor Richard L. Francis as their attorney to draft an initiative that would prohibit any development on the greenbelt without first putting the project before Ventura’s voters.

Francis expanded their concept into what is called Measure J on the ballot. As written, it seeks to limit development on thousands of acres of farmland in the city and just outside the city limits by requiring the acreage to remain zoned for agriculture forever--unless proposed changes are approved by a majority of city voters.

The City Council would be powerless to change the zoning without voter permission.

In March of this year, Francis took note of a California Supreme Court decision to uphold a similar law adopted by Napa County.

The law blocks development on Napa’s vineyards and other farmland in its unincorporated areas, but it uses a different legal mechanism: Instead of freezing zoning to control growth, it freezes the area’s master-planning document, called the Comprehensive Plan.

With the encouragement of other slow-growth activists, Francis designed another ballot initiative patterned closely after the Napa County law.

That initiative, which qualified as Measure I on November’s ballot, forbids the City Council from making any changes to acreage designated as farmland in the city’s Comprehensive Plan until the year 2030--unless otherwise instructed by a majority of city voters.

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Measure I has two narrow loopholes that give the council and landowners a bit of flexibility.

First, the council could allow development of farmland if it has lain fallow for two years and either bad soil, poor drainage or other physical reasons make the land no longer suitable for farming.

Second, the council could allow development if it concludes that otherwise the landowner would have no economically viable use of the land--a right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

“It was purposely drafted to be restrictive,” Francis said. “I cannot see a situation in Ventura where the property is no longer viable ag land. What we’ve designated as ag land has got . . . 20 feet of topsoil.”

Margaret Woodbury, Napa County’s chief deputy counsel, confirms that the exemptions in the law are extremely limited. She said the Napa County Board of Supervisors has exempted landowners in only a few cases, usually to clean up an unforeseen mapping error.

But Woodbury said the supervisors could probably find a way under the 1991 law to exempt a landowner if they wanted to do so. “Why would they want to?” she asked. “There is consensus in this community about no growth. Our main industry is agriculture.”

Area farmers and landowners are appalled at the potential restrictions on their property, which could lock them into farming for 35 years or more. They vow to challenge the measures in court, should they be adopted by the voters next month.

But Susan Goodkin, an attorney who helped defend the Napa County law, advises landowners not to waste money on legal fees. She will not vouch for Measure J. But she believes Measure I, which she helped draft, is bullet-proof.

“Talk to a good land-use lawyer and think long and hard about it,” she told a group of farmers during a recent debate on the ballot measures. “There are a lot of better ways to waste your money.”

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For now, many of Ventura’s farmers and large landowners are focused on beating the measures at the ballot box.

Growers have banded together under a group called Farmers, Families and Friends Against Irresponsible Regulations, or FAIR. The group is attracting money from landowners across Ventura County who “want to stop this cancer from spreading to other cities,” as one farmer put it.

The list of big-dollar contributors is developing into a Who’s Who of Ventura County agriculture: the Limoneira Co., Leavens Ranches, the Pinkerton Ranch. The Ventura County Farm Bureau, in an unprecedented move, loaned FAIR $20,000 to kick-start the campaign.

FAIR has hired professional campaign consultants, conducted a survey of Ventura voters’ attitudes and dispatched one “Don’t Be Fooled!” political mailer to the city’s electorate. Others are on the way.

Business leaders have formed a second group of opponents, called Venturans for a Quality Community. This group also plans to send political mail or use other types of advertising, financed so far by a $1,500 donation from the Chamber of Commerce and $10,000 from the owners of Taylor Ranch.

The hilly ranch, located on the northwest corner of the Ventura Freeway and Highway 33, could not be developed until after the year 2030 under Measure I.

Councilman Bennett, Francis and other supporters of measures I and J have united under the group Save Our Agricultural Resources. SOAR’s biggest contributions so far have come from Francis and money amassed by Bennett’s grass-roots group of environmental activists, called Voters Coalition of Ventura.

SOAR has dispatched one political mailer to Ventura voters to mock the farmers’ worries over the measure and their dire predictions that “The Sky is Falling!” The group hopes to send out at least one more.

Rex Laird, executive director of the farm bureau, said farmers will not underestimate SOAR’s leaders during the campaign.

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“From a strategic standpoint, we’ve got an uphill battle,” said Laird, who sits on FAIR’s steering committee. “We’ve been down this road before with the same [opposing] group of people.”

Indeed, the battle lines mirror those in a political skirmish over an earlier Ventura ballot measure.

In 1992, landowners and business leaders squared off with environmental activists over Measure O, which asked voters if the city should build a seawater desalination plant or a pipeline to hook up to the State Water Project, which imports water from Northern California.

The matter became a big issue during the drought because Ventura’s limited water supplies, which rely on ground water and rainfall, once led to a three-year moratorium on new building permits.

Business and agricultural leaders pushed for the pipeline, arguing that it would bring an unlimited supply of cheap water needed for farming and future growth. Environmentalists preferred the desalination plant, arguing that the city would be better off with less, so it could stay out of state water politics.

The voters opted for a desalination plant, 55%-45%, bucking a lopsided campaign during which state water supporters plastered the city with signs and jammed voters’ mailboxes with political flyers.

In the campaigns gearing up over measures I and J, the farmers and business leaders are poised again to overwhelm slow-growth activists. So far they have developed an early cash advantage of $54,372 to $8,282. That’s better than a 6-1 lead.

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If everything else is equal, campaigns with the most money usually win elections. But hopelessly lopsided campaigns can backfire, as voters grow suspicious of too many political signs or an endless stream of one-sided political brochures arriving with the mail.

Farmers acknowledge that many Ventura residents are attached to the surrounding farmland and open space.

And that makes it tough for them to persuade voters that these greenbelt-preservation measures should be shelved because they infringe on farmers’ options for their property, are bad for the economy or could push development into other agricultural areas farther from the city.

Daniel Goodwin opposes both measures, partly because his church, the First Assembly of God, bought 25 acres in the inner-city greenbelt nine years ago in hope of building a new church and Christian school there.

The church would be out of luck if either measure passes.

But Goodwin, a real estate appraiser, said he understands the support for farmland among his Ventura neighbors. Preserving the greenbelts helps boost property values, he said.

“For selfish reasons, I would benefit financially from measures I and J,” he said. “I own a house and two condos in Ventura.”

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Candidates offer views on growth. B11

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Other Measures

Ventura city voters face three other measures that were placed on the Nov. 7 ballot by the City Council.

Campaign Contributions

Measure H proposes setting limits on campaign donations to Ventura City Council candidates. Under this measure, candidates would have to accept or reject an “expenditure ceiling” of $20,000 that could be spent in a single election.

If the candidate rejects the overall $20,000 limit, contributions to their campaigns will be limited to $100 per person, company or political organization.

If the candidate accepts the $20,000 cap, contributions can be as high as $200 per person or organization.

Currently, there are no limits on City Council candidates.

Councilman Steve Bennett, who authored the measure, said campaign limits will help restore public confidence in local officials and will limit the influence of special interests on city elections.

The measure has generated no organized opposition.

City Leases

Measure K would amend the Ventura City Charter to allow the council to lease an area on the Ventura Pier and other waterfront property for up to 55 years.

The City Council is now limited to 10-year leases on the city’s waterfront property--a limitation that council members say makes it difficult to line up businesses willing to invest in quality restaurants or other establishments.

The measure was placed on the ballot in 1993, but failed after supporters neglected to write arguments favoring it on sample ballots mailed to the city’s voters.

The measure is supported by city leaders and has no organized opposition.

Library Tax

Measure L proposes a $35 tax on each parcel of property in the city to restore funding lost in state cutbacks. The extra money would allow the city’s three library branches to double their hours and could expand their budget for new books.

The tax would initially raise an estimated $1.1 million for the E.P. Foster Library, the H.P. Wright Library and the Avenue Library--the three branches of the county library system in Ventura. The tax would rise with inflation, but any increase would not exceed 6% a year.

Without an infusion of new funding, county library officials said they may have to close the Avenue Library next year.

Measure L would allow the Foster and Wright libraries to remain open for five or six days a week, said county Library Services Director Dixie Adeniran, who donated $2,000 of her own money to the “Yes on L” campaign.

Although taxpayer advocates oppose it, the measure has widespread support in Ventura.

But as a new tax, it has a steeper challenge than most measures. To be approved, it must receive 66.7% of the votes cast.

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Preserving Farmland

Ventura voters face two measures on the Nov. 7 ballot that would block new housing or other urban development of farmland in and around the city. The measures would strip the City Council of most control over these protected areas. Major changes could only come with consent of a majority of voters.

The Arguments

PRO:

Slow-growth activists say the measures are needed to keep the pressure to build new houses and strip malls from turning Ventura into another San Fernando Valley.

“As urban sprawl from Los Angeles creeps out, city after city caves in to development of greenbelt areas. City councils alone simply cannot resist the relentless pressure of development. The solution is a citizens safeguard.”

--Steve Bennett, Ventura city councilman

CON:

Farmers say the measures are ill-conceived, would last too long and would unfairly rob them of their rights to develop their land, particularly if their farms go bust.

“This is not saving our agriculture sources, it is more like shackling agriculture. If it gets to the point that agriculture is no longer viable on my land, is it fair to put this burden on me?”

--Bob Tobias, Ventura farmer

Measure I

Modeled after a Napa County law upheld by the California Supreme Court, this measure would set the shaded areas off-limits to development until the year 2030. A landowner could develop a parcel in this area only with permission from a majority of city voters or through a narrow loophole invoked by the City Council. The council could allow development only if it determines either that farming is no longer possible on the property because of physical reasons or that the measure’s restrictions violate the landowner’s property under the U.S. Constitution.

Measure J

This measure would make sure all of the shaded areas remain zoned for agriculture, and thus off-limits to urban development, for an undetermined period of time. The agricultural limitations could only be changed by another majority vote of the people. Without voter permission, the City Council would be powerless to change the zoning in these areas, including those greenbelts that stretch from the Ventura city limits to the borders of Oxnard and Santa Paula.

Sources: Election papers, Ventura City Attorney, Ventura City Planning Division

Researched by KEN WEISS / Los Angeles Times