Council Backs 1-Year Moratorium on New Housing to Review Growth

In a 4-3 vote, the Ventura City Council decided late Monday to put the brakes on residential development citywide by waiting until next year to grant permission for any new housing projects.

Citing the overcrowding problem that led to last week’s shift in school boundaries, Mayor Jack Tingstrom made the recommendation postponing the biennial housing allocation process for a year.

“I don’t think we need to do anything for another year,” Tingstrom said before the meeting. “I know the development community is going to be all over my tail, but that is too bad.”

City Council members, scheduled to decide Monday whether to initiate a study of the city’s population limits and whether to authorize city planners to begin the housing allocation process, quickly agreed to Tingstrom’s proposal.

“The motion caught me off guard. I wasn’t expecting that,” said longtime slow-growth Councilman Gary Tuttle. “Nine months in the lifetime of a city is not significant. I think it does give an opportunity for the schools to get sorted out.”

Before the vote Monday, a former city councilman and Ventura’s superintendent of schools joined residents in raising concerns about how city leaders plan to manage the city’s growth, which has been rapid in recent years.

Ventura schools Supt. Joseph Spirito said Buena High School’s enrollment has skyrocketed the last two years, and increases are working their way through the school pipeline. “Our projections indicate that is merely the beginning,” he told council members.

Ventura Unified School District officials have been struggling to find an acceptable solution to the problem of overcrowding in eastern Ventura schools. Last week, school board members approved a plan that would shift nearly 200 east end students from Buena High School to cross-town rival Ventura High.

Spirito told the council he does not believe school board members have been “asleep at the wheel” in dealing with the district’s growth. He urged city leaders to continue to work with the school district to find long-term solutions to the school overcrowding problem.

“All I am asking is that you work with the school district,” he said.

City Councilman Steve Bennett said he did not believe the city could solve the school district’s existing problems. “What is important,” he said, “is that we don’t make them worse.”

With many Ventura schools already struggling with overcrowded classrooms, Tingstrom said the city should hold off on granting developers the right to build any additional housing projects.

“I think the problems are greater than the growth issue,” he said. “A year isn’t going to hurt anybody.”

Under the housing allocation process, developers compete for the right to build homes in the city. After receiving allocations, developers must still win approval for their construction plans. Those builders who have already won permission to develop would not be affected by the proposed one-year delay.

Talk about Ventura’s growth was triggered by recent population estimates.

In December, city officials reported that Ventura’s population is expected to reach 107,566 by the year 2000. That would exceed a 105,000 population cap set by the City Council in 1989.

City staff members have recommended that the City Council begin a process to amend Ventura’s Comprehensive Plan and reflect the new population totals.

The City Council was given a list of four alternate limits last week. They ranged from raising the cap by 2,000 residents to reflect the new 107,566 population estimate, to raising the cap by more than 4,000 residents or setting a new cap at 112,000 residents.

Former Ventura City Councilman Todd Cullart, who served on the committee that devised the original population cap, said changes to the Comprehensive Plan were justified.

“I think it is right for you to consider changes in the numbers,” he said. But Cullart also urged council members to be cautious in their actions and not allow rampant growth to compromise the city’s quality of life.

“I think that we really have to look at what the city can sustain, particularly in terms of quality of life,” he said, citing schools, traffic, water supplies and sanitation. “We’ve lost a great deal. Let’s take a look at what it takes to sustain this community.”

In Monday’s vote, Tingstrom was joined by Tuttle, Bennett and Councilman Jim Friedman in supporting the postponement. Three members--Jim Monahan, Rosa Lee Measures and Ray Di Guilio--voted against the measure.

“I support what you are saying,” Measures said. “But the real world is how do we get started on quality projects?”

In discussing the staff recommendation to raise the population cap, other council members have said the city should not restrict itself from considering future housing projects.

Measures said the population cap needs to be adjusted to allow key proposals to come forward, such as a 400-bed veterans home and an east Ventura land swap in which a developer would donate land for a regional park in exchange for building 400 homes on city-owned land.

The 112,000 population cap, she said, would allow those projects to be considered and would still stay in line with a population limit of 115,000 set for 2010.

“This would allow the council some flexibility,” she said. “I see each of these projects being considered while not exceeding that population at the year 2000.”