Oxnard Leaders Take Steps Toward Slowing Urbanization of Farmland

After years of promoting new subdivisions and shopping malls, political leaders in Ventura County’s biggest city are calling for strict new limits on development--and winning some uncommon praise from environmentalists.

The apparent shift toward slower growth comes as local leaders are considering a number of major housing projects--all outside areas designated in city plans for growth. Together, three of the biggest proposals would add nearly 4,000 homes to Oxnard and require officials to annex about 1,100 acres of farmland.

Wednesday night, in a meeting triggered by concerns over unchecked growth, City Council and Planning Commission members will discuss whether all of the proposed developments are necessary and talk about steps to make it tougher to further urbanize the city.

On the eve of this week’s policy session, Tom Holden, a city councilman regarded by many as growth-friendly, is pushing for new restrictions on development.

Holden is calling for the city of 150,000 people to adopt “urban growth boundaries,” a planning tool he says would make open spaces outside Oxnard’s current planning area off-limits to builders for many years. Holden has coupled the call for new growth restrictions with outspoken criticism of the city’s Southeast Plan, which would require annexation of 815 acres of farmland to the city for construction of a 3,165-home development, an agricultural theme park and a hotel.

“Farmland is not an infinite resource,” Holden said last week. “And we can’t continue to treat it that way.”

Along with Holden’s proposal, City Councilman John Zaragoza on Wednesday will outline a plan to expand the Planning Commission from five to seven members. That, Zaragoza argues, would help bring a wider range of views to a commission that has long looked favorably on most construction plans.

Council members said strong community opposition to the Southeast Plan--meetings drew residents from all parts of the city--was the catalyst that caused them to take an unprecedented look at growth controls.

“Other city councils were looking to develop, develop, develop,” Zaragoza said. “Now we’re changing gears.”

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Carla Bard of the Environmental Defense Center in Ventura, a frequent critic of Oxnard growth proposals, will urge officials to endorse urban growth limits. “I think the Oxnard council deserves some credit for sitting down and dealing with urban sprawl,” Bard said. “It’s sort of like a lightbulb going off. I think he [Holden] and other councilmen are seeing that residents want to keep their farmland.”

But environmentalists nonetheless question if the proposed safeguards will be enough to prevent rapid urbanization.

Indeed, distrust of the City Council has prompted activists to lend early support to a countywide farmland protection measure planned for next year. The initiative--dubbed Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources, or SOAR--would require voter approval of farmland development.

Council members will not make any formal decisions on the projects during Wednesday’s study session. They will, however, try to give city planners direction on whether to include several major proposals in the city’s updated General Plan and possibly recommend study of new growth limits. The biggest of the current projects appears headed for defeat.

Since being put forth earlier this year, the Southeast Plan has come under fire from Oxnard residents, the Ventura County Farm Bureau, the city of Camarillo and a majority of the City Council.

Opponents say the planned development of homes, a theme park and hotel is simply too big and would destroy the semirural nature of southeast Oxnard, where homes, industrial parks and shopping plazas lie next to strawberry fields.

“I think it’s a dead issue at this time,” City Councilman Bedford Pinkard said of the Southeast Plan. “The 3,100 homes is just ridiculous.”

Indeed, the theme park developer, Somis-based Ag Land Services, has stopped making payments to the city to fund an environmental study of the project after investing about $200,000 to initiate the review, city planners said.

Parker, the planning director, said council members could in essence kill the Southeast Plan on Wednesday by stating they do not support adding the 815 farmland acres to the city. That would make it clear to the developers that the proposal does not have the council votes to pass. Armando Lopez, president of the proposed theme park, Pacific Ag Expo, said that if the Oxnard City Council rejects the Southeast Plan and the 90-acre theme park, the developers will try to take the project elsewhere in Ventura County. And they will try to avoid another farmland site that sparks opposition from preservationists.

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Aside from the Southeast Plan, a number of other projects proposed for open spaces outside Oxnard’s current growth boundaries will come before the City Council in upcoming months. Among those:

* The Northwest Golf Course Community Plan. The proposal calls for the city to add an 18-hole golf course and a 450-home gated community on about 330 acres near Victoria Avenue. About 250 acres there are now used for farming.

Zaragoza said he supports building a new golf course, which would cover the closed Coastal Landfill in a “gateway” to the city. But he noted that the homes in the project would be built over farmland outside city limits--the kind of development city leaders are trying to avoid.

* The North Shore at Mandalay Bay plan. The 365-home gated community would require annexing 90 acres of sand dunes once used as an oil dump site. This summer, a milkweed plant variety thought to be extinct was discovered on the site. A team of biologists are trying to determine if they can be transplanted to the Santa Clara River bottom.

The future of a major project for Ormond Beach that lies within Oxnard’s current growth boundaries remains uncertain. About 1,030 acres had been expected to include a 3,500-home community, before a major developer on the project, the Newport Beach-based Baldwin Co., went bankrupt.

With funding from Southern California Edison, which wants to build a golf course in the project site, the city is redrawing the Ormond Beach project area, but does not have a date on when the study will be completed.

Holden said the urban growth boundaries should protect seaside areas near Ormond Beach south of Hueneme Road, as well as the entire 815 acres of farmland proposed in the Southeast Plan. Used primarily in Northern California communities such as San Jose, the urban limits are described as much more strict than planning tools such as greenbelts and spheres of influence. They establish areas that cities will not develop for periods that usually last 20 to 30 years.

Holden argues that such limits are a good idea, because they will remove much of the political feuding that surrounds development proposals for open spaces.

Holden said new growth limits will make City Council members scrutinize development proposals much more closely than in the past. “The bottom line is, what is going to make us a livable community,” he said.