Officials to Discuss Bridge Funding Plan

Oxnard city officials are set to discuss a special plan tonight to pay for a new $15.8-million bridge over the Ventura Freeway at Rose Avenue that would enable a stalled development project to move forward.

Under the plan, Oxnard would set up a special assessment district that would charge business and property owners based essentially on how much they use the span.

The City Council delayed a ruling on a 120,000-square-foot expansion of a Rose Avenue retail complex last Tuesday to give the Santa Monica-based developer and other property owners time to review the assessment proposal.

The city would not levy any assessment on individual residential homeowners.

“We are not assessing any residential homeowners who vote,” said Jim Fabian, an Oxnard financial analyst.

Fabian said some of the larger developments that would fall under the assessment include Oxnard’s auto mall, Shopping at the Rose I and II and St. John’s Regional Medical Center.

Fabian said the assessment amounts would vary on land use. General commercial property owners would be assessed $41,000 per acre; auto dealers, $17,000 per acre; business research park owners $23,000 per acre; commercial office space owners $30,000, and $15,000 per acre for heavy manufacturers.

Fabian said residential home builders would pay about $1,018 per single-family home and $555 per condominium.

The money would pay for a new six-lane bridge that would include two 5-foot-wide sidewalks and a bike lane.

Oxnard’s city manager and the Rio School District filed an appeal to block the Shopping at the Rose Avenue retail expansion from going forward earlier this year. In their appeals to a decision by Oxnard’s Land-Use Advisors panel, City Manager Tom Frutchey and the school district argued the project should not move ahead until the city had arranged a financing plan for a new bridge.

Many officials have said the existing, two-lane bridge cannot handle increased traffic and that it is already dangerous for schoolchildren who use the structure to cross the freeway.

The city plans to levy the assessment in 1996 or 1997 and hopes to begin construction on the bridge in March 1997. It would take about two years to build.