Neighbors Oppose Plan for 227 Homes in Lemon Grove

Residents of the Ventura East neighborhood say a developer’s plan to build more than 200 homes in a 42-acre lemon grove has left a sour taste in their mouths.

Notified just three weeks ago that Beazer Homes is seeking approval from the Ventura County Planning Commission to build 227 homes at the corner of Telegraph and Kimball roads, residents have launched a belated campaign to either stop or slow the project.

Many attended Tuesday’s Planning Commission meeting to complain about the project and presented a petition signed by more than 120 residents. Planners did not make a decision and will consider the development later this month when Beazer Homes is expected to submit a revised proposal.

“Members of the commission also have concerns with the Beazer project,” Planning Commission Chairman Sandy Smith told an audience of about 30 residents.

Smith said commissioners and city planners have been working with the developer to modify the proposal. “That process is continuing,” he said.

The project came before the commission in November, and members told the developer to come up with a plan that would be more palatable to neighbors concerned with traffic and loss of green space.

While the site is not affected by the greenbelt-protection law approved by voters last fall, it underscores the sentiment that led to the initiative.

“What is Ventura going to be in the future--all cement and asphalt?” complained neighborhood resident Cecil Black. He and his wife, Ann, have lived in their one-story Harding Avenue home for 35 years. Their back door is less than 15 feet from the lemon grove.

“We know we have been spoiled living here the last 35 years,” Ann Black said, resigned to the fact that some form of construction will occur. “Those trees have been the best neighbors.”

While the Blacks realize that the lemon grove--which is bounded on three sides by development and on the fourth by California 126--will undoubtedly be bulldozed, they and their neighbors plan to lobby the Planning Commission to approve something significantly scaled back from the proposal on the table.

The Blacks and their longtime neighbors have been doing their homework the last three weeks. Up and down Harding Avenue, residents are armed with blueprints of the project and talk knowledgeably about traffic surveys and density studies.

The Ventura East subdivision that abuts the lemon grove consists of 204 single-story homes. Neighbors such as the Blacks and Cheryl Draughon say Beazer’s plan to build two-story homes less than 10 yards from their houses is wrong.

“They plan to build two-story homes right up to my property line,” Draughon said. “Nobody wants their neighbors looking down on them.”

And the density of eight homes per acre will detract from the neighborhood, creating traffic and pollution problems while overcrowding area schools, residents claim.

“The developer is just packing them in,” Draughon said. “Ventura will not be a better place if the plan goes in as they have drawn it up.”