Ventura Council Backs Land Swap, but Delays Sending It to Voters

A land swap that prompted Ventura residents to demand protection of farmland could come before the voters next year, as a result of a City Council decision early Tuesday.

Council members agreed to support an initiative that would amend the greenbelt-protection law--approved on November’s ballot--by allowing city-owned farmland to be traded for property that would become a regional park.

Under the plan, the city’s lemon orchards would be sold or traded as a future housing site, and the swapped land would be developed as a large park with soccer fields, baseball diamonds and possibly a municipal swimming pool.

The land-swap initiative was proposed by Councilwoman Rosa Lee Measures, who asked her colleagues to place it on the Nov. 5 ballot.

But after a lengthy discussion, the council decided that the initiative was vaguely written and needed further revision before being placed on the ballot.

The panel voted 4 to 2 to instruct city staff to bring the initiative back in seven months with changes. The revised measure would be placed on either the March or November 1997 ballots.

“We have small parks, but we don’t have anything of a regional nature,” said Measures, who acknowledged that the initiative needed fine tuning.

Measures’ land-swap plan is almost identical to a deal proposed by developer Ron Hertel two years ago.

Hertel, who supported Measures’ election campaign, proposed trading 92 acres of farmland at Telephone and Kimball roads for the city’s land--87 acres of lemon and avocado orchards at Telegraph Road and Petit Avenue.

He offered to pay the city $2 million for the land, on which he wanted to build 437 homes.

The deal angered residents who lived near the city-owned orchards, and it served as the catalyst for the greenbelt-protection--the so-called Save Our Agricultural Resources--initiative on last fall’s ballot.

Measure I, which was approved by a narrow margin, prohibits development on farmland in and around the city until 2030 unless Ventura voters decide otherwise.

Resident Sheri Vincent, who worked on the campaign and lives next door to the site, told the council that the land-swap proposal was a bad deal two years ago and would be a bad deal now.

“This feels like deja vu all over again,” Vincent said. “We knew it was a bad deal for the city, and that is what prompted the SOAR initiative. . . . Please, I ask you to carefully consider this.”

But Measures argued that plans for an east end park have been on the shelf for two years already and need to move forward.

“It is simply moving ahead with a focus and a vision,” Measures said. “I don’t know of any other way to move forward with a regional park.”

Council members and residents who addressed them agreed that a regional park would benefit the community, providing a large recreational area for east end residents.

“We desperately need new recreational facilities,” resident John Correa said.

But the council majority questioned the urgency of the proposed initiative. The deadline to place a measure on the Nov. 5 ballot is only weeks away.

Among their concerns, some council members said they were leery of placing an initiative on the fall ballot when voters may be asked to decide the fate of the Buenaventura Mall expansion project.

Signatures in support of a referendum are now being counted. If that measure qualifies, it would be placed in the Nov. 5 ballot.

“The vote is going to be very critical,” Mayor Jack Tingstrom said. “I would hate to have anything in the way.”