Neighbors’ Input Gives Tract Project New Life

Residents were irate last year when Orange County developer Beazer Homes proposed building 228 tract homes on a 42-acre lemon orchard in east Ventura.

They waved signs before the Planning Commission and thundered during public hearings that the compact subdivision at the southwest corner of Kimball and Telegraph roads would clog streets with traffic and rob what was left of the city’s diminishing farmland.

Now, after a year of intense negotiations among neighbors, developers and city officials, one of Ventura’s most hated development projects has become a widely supported plan.

The City Council is expected to consider Beazer’s new and improved development proposal during a public hearing Monday night. A final vote is set for July 28.

“It is the best project, I think, that we could have hoped for,” said east Ventura resident Matt Capritto, who participated in the negotiations.

“This has gone far beyond the normal process because it has actually given the people who are going to see the project every day--the neighbors--a chance to have input,” Capritto said.

“Frankly, as a neighbor, and as a homeowner in east Ventura, I am not thrilled to have another development,” he said. “But I think to have a hand in the creative process--I think that has been fabulous.”

A number of significant changes have been made to the project since it was first presented to the Planning Commission 16 months ago. Most of those changes directly address residents’ concerns.

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First, the number of homes has been reduced from 228 to 198, allowing more space between the one- and two-story houses.

The design of the homes is more architecturally pleasing, planners say, and more trees and shrubs will surround them. Traffic patterns have been altered to ease congestion. Beazer has also agreed to pay for the widening of a nearly mile-long section of Telegraph Road, from Hill Road to Hoover Avenue, before the first home is constructed.

And to ease concerns about school overcrowding, Beazer has agreed to contribute 50% more to the Ventura Unified School District in developer fees--money to be specifically earmarked for east Ventura schools that would be affected by the project.

“We ended up with a much better project for the community,” said Planning Commissioner Sandy Smith, who also participated in the negotiations.

The only problem that remains, he said, is how landscaping improvements will be funded after the development is completed.

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Planning commissioners are recommending the creation of a landscaping maintenance assessment district, in which homeowners would contribute annual fees. But the formation of a homeowners association has also been proposed.

Beyond that, Smith said, it’s unfortunate that past development projects throughout the city have not gone forward with the same degree of public participation.

“It’s ironic,” he said. “I really feel that if we had done this type of planning from the early ‘60s, we would not have had the problems with development.”

Still, not everyone is supportive of Beazer’s plan.

“As far as I am concerned it is a done deal,” said resident Cecil Black, a longtime opponent of the project.

“It is a better project than what they had,” he said. “They came down 30 houses. But I don’t know. Ventura is just going to be wall-to-wall houses like Orange County as far as I am concerned.”

Black was among the critics who attended the meeting a year ago when the Planning Commission first voted on the subdivision. Initially, the panel rejected it.

But a month later, commissioners said the developer deserved a chance to take the plan back to the drawing board and work with neighbors.

The process started with the formation of a committee composed of nearby homeowners, city staff, planning commissioners, developers and a professional facilitator hired by Beazer.

Together they identified the key points of contention--increased traffic, the proximity of new homes to old homes in the area, and school overcrowding. As a group, they began to work out a new development plan.

“There were some concerns about the amount of new development that had occurred in the east Ventura area,” city planner Mark Stephens said. “And so armed with all that information and some brainstorming, the team went through a consensus-building process and came up with a revised plan.”

A public workshop was held in March at Juanamaria School, and about 70 people from nearby neighborhoods attended.

Last month, the Planning Commision voted on the revised proposal. It was approved, and, according to Smith and Stephens, only one person voiced opposition, compared with more than 100 who attacked the plan a year ago.

“I am not suggesting that everyone is jumping up and down with enthusiasm,” Stephens said of the current proposal, “but I think a lot of the opponents had a much better feeling about the project.”