Activists Try for Wider Protection of Farmland

Encouraged by their successful farmland protection law in Ventura, slow-growth activists have decided to push similar ballot initiatives that would forbid development of greenbelts across Ventura County without permission of the voters.

After a yearlong legal research project, the loose network of activists decided that the only sure-fire way to rein in urban sprawl would be to pass a countywide greenbelt-protection ordinance as well as one for each city.

“Consequently, we intend to organize a countywide effort to put both a countywide and as many city initiatives as possible on the ballot at the same time,” said former Ventura Mayor Richard Francis, a co-leader of the group.

The announcement brought swift reaction from agricultural leaders, who fought the Ventura measure last fall and lost. They view such measures as treading on their property rights.

“We were against it in Ventura, and we will be against it in every city in the county and will certainly be against a countywide ordinance,” said Mike Mobley, president of the Ventura County Farm Bureau. “Farmers are prepared to spend lots and lots of money to fight this.”

Indeed, farmers and developers spent about $180,000, roughly $18 per vote, on their campaign last year to defeat Ventura’s greenbelt-protection initiative.

The measure narrowly passed anyway, setting thousands of acres of farmland in and around Ventura off limits to any urban expansion until 2030--unless a specific development gets permission from a majority of city voters.

The same coalition of farmers and landowners has since challenged the Ventura law in court. But the lawsuit was tossed out, and now the group’s Sacramento lawyer is preparing an appeal. He says it will be filed next week.

“This case is aimed for the California or United States Supreme Court,” said attorney Ronald A. Zumbrun. “The societal, economic and environmental ramifications are huge.”

Ventura activists modeled the city’s ordinance after a similar 1990 Napa County law because it has been upheld by the California Supreme Court. They believe the Ventura law will also stand up to legal scrutiny.

Given their success so far, the group has begun to use the Napa law as a template to design similar initiatives to protect farmland in county-controlled areas, as well as those within city boundaries.

“There is no cookie cutter [initiative] that works for every city,” Francis said. “Every city ordinance has to be custom tailored.”

The group, calling itself Greenbelt Protection for Ventura County, is aiming to place initiatives on the ballot in either June or November 1998. In the interim, the group wants to build a larger network of like-minded activists to help raise about $75,000 and collect signatures of supporters who are registered voters.

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Ventura Councilman Steve Bennett, the group’s other co-leader, said Camarillo residents have expressed the strongest interest in pursuing a city and county ordinance.

Many of them have been motivated by large-scale projects, such as a British developer’s proposal to build houses on 195 acres of what, until recently, was lemon groves.

The proposed Knightsbridge project is north of Camarillo in the middle of a swath of county land designated for agriculture. A countywide ordinance would prohibit this kind of development on farmland in unincorporated areas, except with approval from voters.

Under Ventura County’s master plan, urban growth is supposed to be contained within city boundaries. The idea is to leave county unincorporated areas as agricultural buffers between urban centers. The county guidelines, however, contain a loophole in that homes can be built on parcels as small as two acres in farm areas.

And some cities have expanded rapidly in recent years, so that city boundaries are now touching. The farmland within city limits is slowly being paved over with new streets, shopping centers and residential neighborhoods.

Cities have set up agreements to preserve surrounding farmland by designating some of these areas as greenbelts. But those informal agreements have been disregarded by some city leaders interested in annexing more land to build favored projects.

So Bennett and Francis want to make it virtually impossible for city officials to change zoning of designated farmland without voter approval.

“To the extent that each city can annex county land, we would end up with wall-to-wall city and no county, unless each city has internal controls on farmland,” Francis said.

Some cities may need more strict controls than others, the activists said, depending on their expansion plans.

Thousand Oaks will not need an ordinance at all, Bennett said, because the city recently adopted an open-space protection ordinance that forbids development of parks, golf courses or open space without voter approval.

Bennett noted that farmers opposed to Ventura’s measure last year said they would favor a county ordinance because the unincorporated areas are where the farmlands are supposed to be.

“If you support agriculture, there shouldn’t be any reason to oppose a countywide initiative,” Bennett said. If they don’t support it, he said, “then development must be their motivation.”

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But Mobley, the farm bureau president, said he believes the entire approach is misguided and violates landowners’ property rights and constitutional rights to due process.

“Sure, we think there are some changes needed to make it more difficult to change land uses,” he said. “We might be able to make some changes to preserve farmland, but not tie the hands over everyone so tightly that every change requires a vote of the people.”

Francis and Bennett extended an offer to meet with farm officials to discuss the proposed initiatives--an offer readily accepted by the farm bureau. No date has been set.

Francis stressed that the initiatives are merely in draft form and are likely to change over time. “I hope to tailor the initiatives to bring on as much farmer support as we can,” he said.

Michael Wesner, chairman of the county Planning Commission, said that he and fellow Commissioner Brian Brennan want to organize meetings between farmers and the slow-growth activists in hopes that face-to-face discussions might yield less divisive ways to protect farmland.

Enough common ground exists between the two groups, Wesner said, to form a basis for dialogue.

“They basically have the same philosophy--they want to keep the land agricultural,” he said.

Although many look to the current greenbelt system as a permanent shield against development, Wesner said the greenbelt agreements between the county and cities lack the legal teeth to indefinitely protect farmland and open space.

Thursday morning, the county Planning Commission held a hearing to dispel myths that the county’s six greenbelts have binding legal authority to control growth. Rather, that power lies in the general plans and zoning ordinances adopted for those areas.

Furthermore, there exists no countywide consensus on what land uses can be allowed in a greenbelt.

“They’re all over the place,” Wesner said.

The county’s greenbelts encompass about 83,000 acres of agricultural and open-space land. The county’s first greenbelt was established between the cities of Ventura and Santa Paula in 1967.

Times correspondent David Baker contributed to this story.