Activists Fail to Crash Session on Buffer Zone

A small contingent of county activists made a futile attempt Thursday to crash a closed-door meeting of a group of east county government leaders who were discussing protections for the Tierra Rejada Valley.

The activists, who waited at Supervisor Judy Mikels’ east county office while she met with the mayors of Simi Valley, Moorpark and Thousand Oaks and Supervisor Frank Schillo, said they had hoped to participate in the discussion and interest the group in considering protections for greenbelts countywide.

“Instead of looking at these greenbelts in a piecemeal fashion, let’s take a look at what they have in common,” said Neil Moyer, president of the Ventura County Environmental Coalition.

Moyer waited with Thousand Oaks Planning Commissioner Linda Parks and Oxnard farmland preservationist George Johnson for about half an hour before giving up and leaving.

The group said that with the pressure for development on greenbelts that surround each of the county’s cities, it was prudent to look at rules that could protect them all.

They also mentioned the possibility of a countywide greenbelt-preservation initiative, modeled after the recently passed initiative in the city of Ventura.

“Efforts are underway” to get a countywide initiative on the ballot, Moyer said.

The Ventura initiative, modeled after a similar law passed in Napa County in 1990, requires that all major decisions on development of farmland be put to a vote of the people.

It is too late to gather enough signatures to get a countywide initiative on the November ballot, Moyer said, adding that the Board of Supervisors could do it if it chose to.

“That’s highly unlikely though,” he said.

Thursday’s informal meeting was meant to be a discussion about an informal agreement to protect the 2,200-acre Tierra Rejada greenbelt.

The mostly undeveloped greenbelt that separates Moorpark, Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks is dotted with barns, stables and ranch homes. To preserve that rural buffer zone, officials from the three cities and the county signed a two-page “gentleman’s agreement” in the early 1980s meant to prevent urban sprawl and overdevelopment in the region.

Thursday’s session “was never meant to be a public meeting,” said Keith Jajko, who works for Mikels. “The intent was simply to revisit the Tierra Rejada agreement.”

The value of that agreement was recently brought into question after the county approved construction of a small luxury home development in the greenbelt, despite the objections of each of the three cities.

In March, the county approved the construction of six homes on 60 acres in the shadow of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. That development required a zoning change.

County supervisors approved the project, saying it held to the intent of the rules governing the greenbelt. In addition, they said, the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District will receive 240 acres of land, including Mt. McCoy--a prominent Simi Valley hill topped with a cross--from the developer.

“I think there was a question about whether we were just being ignored,” Moorpark Mayor Paul Lawrason said before heading into Thursday’s meeting. “Perhaps there are ways we can strengthen the agreement.”

Simi Valley Mayor Greg Stratton said that although his city did not support the development, he did not believe that the county violated the agreement.

“They simply disagreed with the cities,” Stratton said.

Although he believed that the rules governing the greenbelt could be more specific, he said he opposed doing much more than that.

“We could set down a whole bunch of wickets to run through and another bureaucracy if we wanted to,” Stratton said. “I don’t know if that’s what we want to do, but it might be appropriate to have . . . something in place for better review and less surprises. And let’s have a map and get specific about the kinds of things we will allow.”