Panel Gets a Look at Completed Plans for Mall Expansion

Plans to expand the Buenaventura Mall moved closer to reality Tuesday when the Planning Commission reviewed complete details on the $50-million project for the first time.

The proposed expansion has created a maelstrom and triggered an initiative drive aimed at killing a tax-sharing plan between mall owners and the city.

And it has ignited a long-standing fight between Ventura and Oxnard over which city will develop western Ventura County’s first regional mall.

But during a special televised meeting Tuesday night, Ventura’s commissioners sidestepped the rancorous debate to discuss specific issues related to the expansion, such as required landscap1768843040 “Our issues typically have to do with land use and we have some things we have to deal with tonight,” Chairman Sandy Smith said before the meeting. “Whether we can deal with those issues774778441 Even before the lengthy public hearing started, city officials warned that the meeting could stretch late into the evening as commissioners attempted to wade through one of the largest and 1836020596 The mall’s owner, MCA Buenaventura Associates, plans to sink roughly $50 million in major improvements into the 30-year-old shopping center, adding two department stores and a second level 1868963954 The project has been hotly contested by Oxnard city leaders and lawyers for that city’s Esplanade shopping center. They content the expansion would cripple Oxnard’s sales-tax base. The city661856372 Oxnard officials, who attended Monday’s Ventura City Council meeting, were in attendance at City Hall again Tuesday to state their case against the project.

Oxnard City Manager Tom Frutchey told commissioners that the project would end up hurting both cities. “For the first time, money is being spent not to benefit the community but to benefit544499813 Frutchey criticized the proposed tax-sharing plan and suggested that the neighboring cities work together on a cooperative sales tax arrangement.

At the crux of the mall expansion is a tax-sharing plan that city officials have described as “risk free” for the city. According to the proposed deal, the developer would pay in advance for $12.6 million in street improvements. It would be repaid--with interest--by the city over 20 years.

City staff members say the payback would total about $32.3 million by 2016. The improvements would only be paid for from the city’s share of increased sales-tax revenue.

“Cities don’t want to get burned,” said Jim Rabe the mall owner’s financial advisor. “For this project...the risks stay with the developer, the city bears no risk. The city does not fron1948279150 If the improved mall failed to generate more than the current $1 million in sales taxes, city officials said that Ventura would pay nothing.

The deal has drawn the ire of some self-styled tax advocates who--with some financial support from The Esplanade--have qualified an initiative for the March ballot that would forbid the city 1718775661 But Rabe warned commissioners that without such a public-private partnership, the expansion would not go through.

The improved mall would cover 58 acres in the city’s mid-town area. It would add 403,508 square feet of retail stores to the existing mall, bringing it to 1,023,313 square feet of retail sp1633903918 The proposal comes to the Planning Commission after months of committee meetings, on-site workshops and countless hours of study sessions on the expansion project’s potential environmental 1634624544 To move forward and reach the City Council for final approval, the Planning Commission needs to authorize the following actions:

* Conceptual approval of the design for the new mall.

* An amendment to the city’s comprehensive plan that would allow a less than one-acre residential site to be zoned for commercial use.

* A use permit that would allow the shopping center to be renovated and expanded.

* And a recommendation to the City Council to approve a development agreement with the mall’s owners.

The project soared past one of its last major hurdles Monday night when the Ventura City Council closed the environmental review process by unanimously voting to uphold a decision by the city’s Environmental Impact Review Committee.

After the committee last month approved a supplementary environmental impact report, Oxnard city officials and lawyers representing that city’s Esplanade shopping center challenged the decision on grounds the report did not adequately analyze the development’s potentially negative impacts on traffic and Oxnard’s economy.

Ventura city leaders rejected the appeals, saying the anticipated impact on traffic, air quality, noise, water and schools had been sufficiently reviewed.

At Tuesday night’s meeting, topics such a how much landscaping would be required and how tall to build a mandated sound wall were among the issues discussed.

Mall owners are being asked to provide 879 trees for the area surrounding the mall. Preliminary designs call for hundreds of palm and jacaranda trees to be planted around the center. But developers have balked at that requirement. They only want to pay for planting 302 trees.

The landscaping issue has been a sticking point between the city and mall developers and a point of debate Tuesday night.

“We feel pretty strongly about it,” Mitch Oshinsky, Ventura’s planning and redevelopment manager, said before the meeting. “We do feel they have to increase it from what we are at now. Otherwise, we are going to have a sea of asphalt.”

But MCA Buenaventura executive David Jones said the reduced landscaping plan was consistent with the city’s design requirements.

On the sound wall issue, residents of nearby Dunning Street asked commissioners to approve a 15-foot sound buffer between their property and the expanded shopping center. Mall owners had proposed an 8- to 10-foot wall.

Resident Mike Riddle said he visited a Ventura neighborhood near another shopping center that has a 13-foot wall and was convinced that a taller, 15-foot buffer is needed in his neighborhood.

“There is a significant difference between 12 and 15 feet,” he said.

“We have to live with it.”