High Court Won’t Hear Greenbelt Law Appeal

The city’s landmark initiative to protect prime farmland from development has cleared its final hurdle, with the U.S. Supreme Court declining to hear an appeal filed by local farmers, backers said Saturday.

“This is final; there are no more hurdles,” said a jubilant Steve Bennett, who spearheaded the push for the greenbelt preservation initiative passed by 52% of Ventura voters in 1995. “I think this will further convince citizens that SOAR is the proper method to stop urban sprawl.”

The so-called SOAR--or Save Our Agricultural Resources--initiative forbids the Ventura City Council from permitting development on thousands of acres of farmland until 2030, unless voters approve it at the ballot box.

SOAR activists say the latest decision will add fuel to their campaign to take the greenbelt-preservation initiative countywide.

The Ventura initiative, already upheld by local courts, was most recently upheld in August by the California Supreme Court.

But arguing that the initiative flouts property and voting rights, lawyers for those same Ventura farmers made a last-ditch appeal to the nation’s highest court in November, asking it to review the state Supreme Court’s decision allowing the law to stand.

Although he has not seen anything formal, Ventura City Atty. Bob Boehm said that officials at the company preparing the city’s Supreme Court briefs told him that they had seen the Supreme Court docket and that the appeal had been declined.

“I have to emphasize we have nothing official,” Boehm said. “I suspect it is probably pretty accurate, but I will be more confident when I have it in my hot little hands.”

Reached Saturday, a member of the group FAIR--Farmers, Families and Friends Against Irresponsible Regulations--which filed the suit, had heard nothing.

But Bob Tobias, a Ventura lemon and avocado farmer who was active in efforts to strike down the preservation ordinance, refused to say the fight was over.

“If in fact the court has decided not to hear it, they are not saying that it is legal,” he said. “They are just saying they are not going to hear it.”

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He added that if the news were true, it would be a “major disappointment.”

“I think it is wrong both legally and morally,” he said of the initiative.

He said he did not know what his group’s next step would be. Members had not anticipated hearing from the court so quickly.

The timing of the latest decision pleased local environmental activists, who are in the midst of a campaign to take the greenbelt preservation initiative countywide.

“This is perfect,” Bennett said. “We are right at the peak of our fund-raising. This comes right at the start of a real push over the next three to four weeks.”

The countywide SOAR campaign has already received pledges for $75,000, Bennett said. The group hopes to raise $150,000 before members begin gathering the 40,000 signatures required to put the initiative on the ballot in November.

Bennett said the latest decision--if true--will help win moderates over to the campaign.

“Now they will be confident they are supporting something that is legal,” he said.

Richard Francis, who co-wrote the Ventura ordinance with Bennett, said he is not surprised at the decision. They drafted it carefully to withstand appeals.

He said one of the major political issues was a concern that this would generate lawsuits that would go on for years.

“But in fact it was so legally defensible that there was not even a trial, and it has won summarily on all appeals,” he said.

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The road to resolution of the contentious issue has been a long one.

Shortly after voters approved the Ventura initiative, furious farmers and landowners filed suit in Superior Court, contending that their constitutional property rights had been violated and their property values reduced by as much as one-third.

The lawsuit pointed out that landowners just outside city limits are affected by the law but cannot take part in votes concerning their property because they are not city residents.

The Superior Court dismissed such claims, ruling that nothing has prevented property owners outside city limits from asking the Board of Supervisors to allow them to develop their land.

That ruling was later upheld by the 2nd District Court of Appeal, prompting furious farmers to ask the state Supreme Court to step in. The California Supreme Court, however, refused to hear the case.

The state Supreme Court had previously upheld a nearly identical law from Napa County, approved by voters in 1991.

“What I’m most happy about is to have final resolution on this,” said Bennett. “To have no appeals left--the thing has gone all the way through.”