Ventura Authorizes 227 Housing Permits for 2 Developments

Ending a three-year moratorium, the City Council voted to grant 227 housing permits to two development projects and save a remaining 245 permits for the future.

The council also asked city staff to analyze whether an incentive program could be created to attract more developers downtown.

After withholding all new permits for residential development until it revised its method for controlling population growth, the city made 472 housing permits available to developers beginning this year.

Builders proposed 10 projects containing more than 1,900 homes. Last month, the Planning Commission recommended that the city spread the permits among five of the projects.

But the council decided Monday night to roll over more than half of the permits until next year, in hopes of moving the city back to its original cycle of making housing allocations in even-numbered years.

“We’ve got to take it out of election years and make it nonpolitical,” said Mayor Jack Tingstrom, explaining the council’s rationale. “No matter how you slice it, last night could have been very political.”

He added that setting aside the large number of allocations was done to entice interested builders to reapply for permits next year.

By delaying, city officials said, developers will have more time to refine their designs.

Several city officials said this year’s proposed housing designs were rather unremarkable, which they blamed on the uncertainty of the process. The city spent two years revamping its current system to manage residential growth, and its new rules were unclear until recently.

“The quality of the projects leaves a lot to be desired,” Councilwoman Rosa Lee Measures said. “Developers may not have wanted to invest in pretty pictures and lots of designs.”

The City Council ultimately voted to permit 35 condominiums and single-family homes to be built as part of the Bulmer project, located west of Ventura Avenue and north of Shoshone Street. They also authorized 192 single-family homes and apartment units for the Wittenberg-Livingston project, at the southeast corner of Saticoy Avenue and Telephone Road.

The most contentious part of Monday’s meeting was a request by the Wittenberg-Livingston development company that the city guarantee it 439 allocations for its project.

Wittenberg had earlier offered to donate 22 acres, as part its development agreement, for a site to build a veterans home in Ventura. The $33-million facility, a retirement home for 400 veterans, would offer limited health care services and provide transportation to nearby VA hospitals.

At the June 10 Planning Commission meeting, the company had requested permission to build about 100 of the 439 units, but the commission recommended approval for 192.

“What they did not make clear,” said Tom Figg, Ventura’s planning and redevelopment manager, “is that they are also asking the city to sign off on their development agreement.”

That agreement seeks assurances from the city that the company will eventually receive permission to build all 439 homes and apartments called for in its development.

Figg said city staff members were reluctant to suggest that the council guarantee all 439 units until the veterans home agreement is finalized in Sacramento.

“We are not willing to sign off unconditionally,” he said. “What if the state does not approve this site? What if the money does not come through from the state?”

To protect against such problems, the City Council voted unanimously to set aside enough units for the Wittenberg-Livingston project, with the proviso that no homes be built if the veterans home plan falls through.

But city officials called that possibility unlikely.

Tingstrom, who has fought hard to bring a veterans home to Ventura, said the city had no option but to promise the units to Wittenberg.

“He will get the allocations,” Tingstrom said. “That’s the first time he has heard it . . . and if the veterans home does not get funding, the allocations will go away.”

Monday night’s decision was the last under the city’s old system of managing its residential growth. Starting next year, development proposals will be judged by a more rigorous set of criteria designed to give the city more control over design.

None of the dwellings granted permits Monday will be built before October 1999, city officials said.