Study Says Mall Initiative Could Imperil Projects : Ballots: Report finds measure to limit tax-sharing plan might endanger $300 million worth of development proposals in Ventura and scare away investors.

An initiative drive targeting the Buenaventura Mall expansion could threaten $300 million worth of development proposals throughout the city and frighten away investors for years to come, according to a city report released Friday.

The report, authorized by the City Council three weeks ago, outlines what impacts the ballot initiative could have on plans to upgrade and expand the 30-year-old mall as well as other commercial projects. The City Council will discuss the findings Monday.

“The No. 1 thing is that this affects us universally,” said Assistant City Manager Steve Chase, who wrote the report.

The initiative’s wording goes beyond restricting a tax-sharing plan for the Buenaventura Mall, prohibiting the city from engaging in similar deals with other commercial developers.

That, Chase says, would hamper the city’s ability to secure future development projects that could generate sales tax revenue--such as the continued redevelopment of downtown Ventura, a proposed Super K retail center and the retail portion of Centerplex, a $70-million baseball stadium and retail complex.

Without the tax-sharing bargaining tool, the report concludes, businesses looking to move to Ventura will decide to move to other cities where such restrictions do not apply.

In fact, if the initiative was approved, Ventura would become the only city in the state to be restricted from helping developers fund such projects, Chase said.

“We are allowed to stimulate economic development by waiving fees or paying for public improvements,” he said. “What this thing does is strip us of those very fiscal powers.

“It was shown that none of the cities across California have been stripped of those powers,” he said, citing research he conducted with the League of California Cities.

Initiative backers could not be reached for comment Friday. They announced last week that they had gathered more than the required number of signatures needed to qualify their measure for the March 26 ballot but had not turned their petitions in for certification by Friday afternoon.

Initiative supporters say the tax-sharing deal gives away taxpayers’ dollars. In a statement issued Tuesday, backers of the measure said they support expanding the shopping center, but do not want the city to become a partner in its development.

“The city should not speculate in a private venture,” members of Citizens Against the Sales Tax Giveaway wrote, “nor should [it] negotiate away the increased sales tax revenue that the enlarged mall would produce.”

Under the mall proposal, developers would pay for $20 million in public improvements to be reimbursed by the city’s share of sales tax revenue. If approved, a second level would be added to the mall along with two new anchor stores.

City leaders and some businessmen say the tax-sharing plan being brokered is a risk-free investment that would nearly double the $1 million in sales tax revenue now generated by mall sales.

And, they contend, it will keep the mall competitive and save the decaying shopping center from withering into obscurity.

“This is a critical decision,” Councilwoman Rosa Lee Measures said. “The Buenaventura Mall could become a white elephant. It could become a blighted area and that definitely affects the surrounding businesses.”

At their meeting Monday night, council members will decide whether to allow staff to continue their analysis, specifically targeting the initiative’s economic effects, its backers and its legality.

“It is eminently essential that we communicate the facts to the public,” said Measures, who has criticized initiative backers for spewing what she says are misleading statements about the mall plan.