Studies Ordered for Hatchery Conversion

In a decision that Waters Road residents cheered, county planning officials have decided to require an Oxnard businessman to study more closely his plans to convert an abandoned egg farm outside Moorpark to a recycling center.

County planner Becky Linder said that public concern over the proposal had prompted her to change her mind about the need for more study.

Now she wants applicant Sal Plascencia to hire consultants to study the traffic, noise and environmental impacts of using the former Egg City hatchery as a recycling center for tons of concrete, wood and cardboard.

“We would look at the results and decide if we want to require or recommend [even more extensive reviews],” Linder said Tuesday. The three studies could take up to three months to complete.

Planners will use the information to decide whether the project warrants a formal environmental impact report, which would take longer and cost even more money. Scores of trucks would rumble up and down narrow Waters Road each day if the center is allowed to open, according to planners.

Plascencia already has leased the property, and said the new studies would merely slow him down. “If they require it, we’re going to do it,” he said. “This is not going to stop the project.”

But neighbor Hilda Gurney, who won a bronze medal in dressage competition at the 1976 Olympic Games, said the new studies would help persuade planners that the location is wrong.

“These roads are not safe for that kind of equipment,” said Gurney, who runs a horse-training center nearby. “When Egg City was here, they only ran about five little trucks a day.”