Housing Proposal for Farmland Raises Concern

Landowners have asked Oxnard to consider allowing a large, luxury subdivision in an agricultural “reserve” area supposedly shielded from development until 2000.

The proposal involving 303 acres across from the new Oxnard High School on Gonzales Road is still preliminary--more a request from property owners asking the city to look into it than an actual plan.

But talk of 500 residences, an 18-hole golf course and a small shopping center has alarmed environmentalists and others who have fought to protect the area from urbanization.

“This is just scary,” said Jean Harris, who tried unsuccessfully in 1990 with others to urge city leaders to include the land in a greenbelt area--a move that could have prohibited development for at least 30 years.

“It is such rich farmland,” Harris said. “It would be a real shame to lose all of it.”

But Harris and other slow-growth advocates said they predicted property owners might try to build on the parcel after the Oxnard Union High School District built a new high school on about 50 acres along Gonzales Road. As is the case with all state agencies, the district is not bound by local property zoning restrictions.

“There was a concern about [the school] being growth-inducing and changing the whole area,” said Scott Weiss, a former member of Citizens to Protect Oxnard who now lives in Ventura. “That seems to be what this proposal is bringing.”

The area under study is bordered by Victoria Avenue, Gonzales Road, Patterson Road and the Santa Clara River.

When Oxnard’s City Council voted in 1990 to leave the parcel out of the more-protected 2,700-acre greenbelt between Oxnard and Ventura, it included the land in a 1,200-acre “agricultural planning reserve.”

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Although the “reserve” status in theory protects the land from development until 2000, Oxnard is conducting a routine review of the General Plan that includes the parcel.

City Atty. Gary Gillig said the City Council could change the parcel’s zoning to allow development, but only after holding a public hearing and taking a vote.

Because the land is in an unincorporated county area, the Local Agency Formation Commission would also have to approve its annexation to Oxnard before the development could proceed, county officials said.

Portions of the land are owned by Swift Financial Corp. of Oxnard, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a group of property owners represented by Ag Land Services of Oxnard. The Ventura Regional Sanitation District owns the former Coastal Landfill site where property owners have suggested building an 18-hole golf course.

Dave White of Ag Land Services said the suggested type of development would provide CEOs and other high-income professionals with a place to buy custom-built homes and other luxury residences--houses he said Oxnard lacks.

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White also said the public golf course proposed for the landfill would complement the neighboring River Ridge golf course and make good use of a former dump.

“This is an area that the city has intended to urbanize all along,” White said. “The question is timing. You can take advantage of a closed landfill and turn it into something useful for the public.”

White said his company and Swift Financial Corp. will pay about $250,000 to the Ventura-based Civitas urban design firm and to Impact Sciences Inc., a Thousand Oaks environmental consulting firm, to study development proposals for the land.

City planning officials were set to outline the development proposals at Tuesday’s City Council meeting. But the council canceled the presentation after some council members cited a possible conflict of interest.

City Council members Dean Maulhardt and Bedford Pinkard and Oxnard Mayor Manuel Lopez all live in or near the River Ridge subdivision, which neighbors the area under consideration.

Matthew Winegar, a city planning official, said the issue might go before the City Council again on May 7, giving Gillig time to consult with the Fair Political Practices Commission on the potential conflict of interest issue.

County Supervisor John Flynn, whose district includes Oxnard, said he does not believe the area is appropriate for residential development.

“I would have some major concerns about that many more people in the particular area,” Flynn said. “The area was designed for agriculture and open space. That’s what the public generally understands it to be.”