City Designers Seek Residents’ Views

Do big trees make you feel good? Do garish neon signs make you feel bad? Does looking at a dumpster make you feel angry, frustrated or nothing at all?

These are some of the questions design consultants Erik Justeson and Mike Multari will be asking Ventura residents next week at a city-sponsored design meeting open to the public.

The Wednesday meeting will focus on two areas: the stretch of Thompson Boulevard from Ash Street east, and Seaward Avenue from the freeway to the beach.

The consultants are working with the city to come up with guidelines that will give Ventura a sense of place and find an aesthetic theme to unify the disparate parts of the city, but also be developer-friendly.

The meeting will begin with consultants showing a series of “visual preference” tests. These will be slides of landmarks around Ventura. Viewers will be asked to state, by secret ballot, how these pictures make them feel and which designs they like and don’t like.

Discussion in smaller groups will follow.

Consultants will then distribute disposable cameras so citizens can take pictures of streets, signs, buildings and parking lot configurations that they like and bring them back to the next meeting.

The meeting will be held in the community room of City Hall.