Farmland Preservation Efforts Take Root in Oxnard

Backers of a farmland preservation initiative planned for next year have found support in the county’s biggest city, where slow-growth activists are fighting a proposal to convert 815 acres of farmland into housing and an agriculture theme park.

Support for the countywide ballot measure being pushed by open-space advocates such as Ventura City Councilman Steve Bennett and Thousand Oaks Councilwoman Linda Parks springs from anger over Oxnard’s Southeast Plan, Oxnard slow-growth activists say. The 3,165-home proposal will be discussed by the City Council tonight during a review of a staff report on Oxnard’s future growth.

“I think this project is so ridiculous,” said Oxnard attorney Fred Rosenmund, whose family owns a strawberry farm near the proposed development. Such a massive development would destroy the area’s semirural lifestyle, he said.

“It’s so much larger than the past ridiculous projects,” added Rosenmund, one of the farmland advocates who recently invited Bennett and Parks to speak about the proposed initiative with Oxnard residents. “I think it’s caught everyone’s attention. We need to put growth issues back in the hands of voters.” Voter control of farmland development is what supporters of the planned Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources--SOAR--initiative are pushing.

In addition to the countywide ballot measure, Bennett and other preservationists want every city in the county to pass measures similar to the SOAR initiative approved in Ventura in 1995.

The SOAR measure forbids Ventura City Council members to allow development on farmland without voter approval. Bennett argues that to prevent urban sprawl in the county, other local cities need to pass similar initiatives. He said that would make it harder for city governments to annex and develop farmland in county areas--which is what Oxnard’s Southeast Plan proposes to do.

Tonight, the Oxnard City Council will discuss a report summarizing a number of development proposals that would require the city to alter its General Plan, a blueprint for future growth. They will not take action on the report until an upcoming joint meeting with the city Planning Commission.

Councilman John Zaragoza said that farmland development has become a major issue in Oxnard. But he is not sure that the SOAR initiative is the best way to balance population growth and agricultural preservation.

“We have developed quite a bit in Oxnard,” Zaragoza said. “But had we not developed, I’m sure it would have happened in adjacent communities. We need a balance that’s important to farmers, SOAR people and developers. And we have to respect people’s property rights.”

Zaragoza said most Oxnard residents he has spoken with oppose the Southeast Plan because they think the housing proposal is too big. Councilman Tom Holden has already declared opposition to the plan, and Councilman Dean Maulhardt has expressed concerns over its size.

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As they have at every meeting since the Southeast Plan was unveiled six months ago, slow-growth activists in Oxnard will tonight urge City Council members to drop the proposal.

But Oxnard activists say beyond fighting the Southeast Plan, they will press ahead with the 1998 SOAR campaign--whether or not the council decides to approve the housing plan and theme park, which would be called the Pacific Ag Expo.

Oxnard has had numerous environmental groups form over the years, but activists acknowledge they have been unsuccessful in electing slow-growth candidates to the City Council. Oxnard attorney Joe O’Neill said the goal slow-growth proponents now have is limiting the council’s power by passing a farmland protection measure.

“I saw the SOAR initiative gaining steam in Ventura, and I couldn’t understand why it was not being done in our town,” O’Neill said. “Probably it’s the lack of leadership. I don’t think the City Council runs the show any more. Developers run the show. Ag Expo was the icing on the cake.” As Ventura County’s biggest city, Oxnard is crucial to the plans of SOAR proponents.

“Oxnard is not only in the heart of the county, it’s in the heart of agriculture,” said SOAR supporter and former Ventura Mayor Richard Francis. “As goes Oxnard, so goes the county. If Oxnard sprawls, the county is dead.”

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Bennett said he was glad to find such widespread support for his countywide campaign in Oxnard, where 60 residents turned out at a meeting in Heritage Square last week to discuss the city’s growth and the SOAR initiative.

The Ventura councilman talked to Oxnard residents about grass-roots activities such as distributing pamphlets and gathering signatures.

“It’s always a trick to organize the unorganized majority,” Bennett said. “There are good people in Oxnard, but they have to effectively link together.”

Parks, the Thousand Oaks councilwoman, has spent a lot of time in Oxnard recently. She meets often with Francis, an attorney whose office is in Oxnard’s Financial Plaza Tower. “A picture is worth a thousand words,” said Parks of the view from Francis’ 16th-floor office. “You see these developments hopscotching through Oxnard and the intrusion into agricultural land.”

Parks spoke to Oxnard residents recently about her successful open-space initiative drive last year in Thousand Oaks.

“It just takes a few people wanting to spend a lot of time,” she said.