City Council Delays Lifting Ceiling on Population

In an unexpected turn, the City Council voted unanimously Monday to postpone raising its population ceiling for the end of the century, saying it doesn’t want people who don’t exist to hold up growth in Ventura.

Council members say they fear flawed population projections could skew their growth management. The council agreed to resume discussion in March, when it begins overhauling the city’s housing permit process.

“There is this crisis that has been created here in this city using phantom [population] numbers that don’t exist,” Councilman Jim Friedman said. “These people are not here drinking the water, not here using the roads . . . for us to worry about 4,000 or so people who are not here doesn’t make sense to me.”

These “phantom” residents are created when officials measure the city’s anticipated population based on the total number of residential dwellings that have been authorized in Ventura, whether construction has begun or not.

The Comprehensive Plan--Ventura’s blueprint for development--currently states that the city’s population should not exceed 115,000 by 2010, contingent upon the availability of water and other resources.

To keep population growth at a steady pace, the council last year set an interim limit of 105,874 residents for 2000. The council considered raising that shorter-term population target in December but postponed making a decision pending the release of a long-range plan to address school overcrowding.

The city uses the plan’s population targets to budget for long-term needs, such as roads and schools and for municipal services, including police and fire departments. Without accurate numbers, the city risks budgeting too little for necessary services. The city also uses the targets to determine how many housing permits can be given to developers.

But the 2000 population target has created a host of problems. First, city officials concede the number was selected arbitrarily.

Second, officials admit that current population figures already exceed the 105,874 target when the city factors in allocations for houses that have been awarded but not built.

According to Everett Millais, director of community services, as of Dec. 31 there were 1,490 residential projects with allocations that had not yet been constructed. The population on Dec. 21 was 103,237, but by including the still-unbuilt and unoccupied units, the number jumps to 107,203.

Without revision, the Comprehensive Plan could severely limit the city’s ability to dole out sought-after housing permits. The permit process is in turn central to how the city manages growth in Ventura. In its current form, it could distort city planning.

Mayor Jack Tingstrom agreed with Friedman that the city should delay a decision on revising the population targets until the process for issuing housing permits is improved.

Tingstrom advocates a system that would more carefully monitor growth when houses are actually built.

“Let’s add population at the time developers come for building permits,” he said.