City Delays Renewing Greenbelt Agreement

Rejecting Councilman Steve Bennett’s request for immediate action, the Ventura City Council voted to delay renewing the city’s greenbelt agreement with Oxnard until at least January, when the council’s two environmentalists will be gone.

“There is no need to do it now,” said Councilman Ray Di Guilio, who formally suggested that the council wait until next year to address the issue. “There are other bodies, namely the agricultural policy working group--that are in this arena. I would like to wait and see what their recommendations would be.”

The greenbelt issue has come to the fore in recent months.

In April, the Farm Bureau, in its first major land-use policy change since 1983, endorsed the strengthening of so-called greenbelt agreements that declare vast stretches of the county’s best farmland off-limits.

Shortly afterward, the county put together the agricultural policy working group--a task force to make the case for saving agriculture, a $1.2-billion-a-year industry that employs about 18,000 workers across the county.

The task force is expected to release a report in January.

The 1993 greenbelt agreement between Oxnard and Ventura is not legally binding. It is merely a gentlemen’s agreement between the two cities that they will not develop the land that lies between them.

The current agreement requires review within five years and will expire next July. It took nearly a year last time around for the Oxnard City Council, the Ventura City Council and LAFCO--the state agency that oversees annexations to cities--to reach an agreement.

Bennett requested Monday night that the council start the process of renewing the agreement and eliminate the five-year review next time.

In the past, Bennett and Councilman Gary Tuttle have pointed out that Ventura’s greenbelt agreement is the shortest in county history. Most are indefinite.

Other council members said there is no rush to renew the greenbelt agreement because it does not expire until next year.

Bennett questioned the delay.

“The timing of this conveniently excludes Mr. Tuttle and I,” he said. “It will now come back after our terms have expired. I cannot imagine that the maker of the motion ignored that.”