Skirmish Looms on Ponderosa Plan

The latest chapter in the ongoing struggle among farmers, environmentalists and developers will unfold here tonight at City Hall, but with some new twists.

The Ponderosa Corridor Specific Plan, a cluster of zoning changes that could bring 1,850 new homes to 290 acres on the edge of the city, looks good to some landowners as a way to cash in on upturns in the retail and housing climates.

Others challenge the plan not because they oppose the zoning changes, but because they will not make as much money as some of the other landowners.

A handful of environment-minded residents, meanwhile, plan to oppose the land-use change because it would reduce Ventura County’s stock of farmland.

Still another coalition--pilots who fly in and out of Camarillo Airport--will lobby against the zoning changes because they say it is too dangerous to build so many new houses under the airport’s northern flight path.

Even Oxnard city officials allege that annexing and developing the 290 acres will add traffic to the already congested Ventura Freeway.

By most accounts, it will be a lengthy hearing and a close vote.

Lawyers, consultants and land-use planners have spent thousands of dollars and months of research gearing up for the public hearing tonight, which will begin after 7:30.

Each has ample arguments to convince council members to approve, reject, modify or delay the Ponderosa Corridor Specific Plan.

Planning Director Matthew A. Boden said the property--north of the Ventura Freeway between Las Posas Drive and Central Avenue--could be turned into a residential and commercial village to one day serve the long-planned state university.

“That would create a sense of place and an attractive, lively destination in western Camarillo,” he said in his report to the council.

But some property owners complain that the way the specific plan has been drawn up, they will not be able to capitalize on the land-use change from agriculture to residential and commercial.

Oxnard attorney Marc L. Charney represents the Lin family, which owns the westernmost 50 acres of the proposed area. They do not oppose annexing the land into the city of Camarillo, or even changing the zoning.

But as it is now, 80% of the Lin property would revert to rights of way, setbacks and parkland, Charney said.

“It’s really not economic,” he said of the proposed plan. “This is a logical extension of the city’s area. [But] they’d rather have it made more reasonable for their property.”

The specific plan would simply change the land use. Any development would need to go through a new application process.

Nonetheless, some residents want to act now to halt the possibility of a big new project. Camarillo resident Leslie McLeod said building 1,850 homes and a host of shops and offices would eat away at her quality of life.

“Taken with several other recently approved developments, this project permanently damages the wonderful, semirural environment that has been Camarillo’s greatest asset,” McLeod wrote to city officials.

“If the city fully intends to eliminate all of the irreplaceable agricultural land uses within its borders, it should be consistent, at least, in striking the words quiet, peaceful and semirural from all of its promotional literature,” she added.

Businessman and pilot Wally Boeck said he plans to challenge the project at tonight’s hearing. He said the city has no business approving development so close to the Camarillo Airport.

“It’s not safe, it’s too noisy and it makes ag land on the west end of Camarillo look like a tunnel full of houses,” he said, referring to the tall sound walls that would be built along the freeway.

“We need housing, but there are others places to put it,” Boeck said.

Even Richard Maggio, Oxnard’s community development director, questions whether studies have addressed all of the impacts of the Ponderosa Corridor plan.

Camarillo Mayor David M. Smith is similarly skeptical about the proposal.

“My inclination is that the proposed annexation and development is premature,” he said. “There’s been a great deal of development in Camarillo the last few years, especially along the Ventura Freeway.”