Street-Widening Policy Repealed

The City Council repealed a 20-year-old street-widening policy in west Ventura that local shop owners said continued to depress their property values and discouraged them from making improvements.

The 1976 policy required Ventura Avenue property owners to give up nine feet fronting the street if they do work on their building worth more than $2,000.

The city enacted the policy after a traffic study revealed that Ventura Avenue needed to be widened from 66 feet to 84 feet between Thompson Boulevard and Vince Street or traffic would be gridlocked by 2015.

Westside Community Council Chairwoman Lauri Flack said in a June 21 letter to the council that her group wanted to get rid of the widening policy because it dampened revitalization efforts in the area.

City engineers say that road widening may be delayed because traffic flows have not grown as much as the earlier traffic study anticipated.

They also worried that the policy would be too expensive. Widening the road would cost about $2 million, but prices would shoot up when the city began to acquire rights of way and pay relocation fees for affected businesses.

At the meeting, city staff proposed an alternative to widening Ventura Avenue.

“We think it makes sense to back off the policy, and look at Cedar and Cameron streets [as parallel routes] rather than widening Ventura Avenue,” said Everett Millais, director of community services.