Oxnard Council Expected to Approve $438-Million Redevelopment Project

After months of sometimes contentious discussion, the City Council is expected tonight to approve a $438-million redevelopment project aimed at boosting sales and property taxes in some of the city’s oldest industrial and commercial areas.

The redevelopment district--the city’s fifth and largest to date--would cover 2,229 acres, or about 7% of Oxnard’s total area.

Although city leaders have pitched the project as a boon to the local economy, the proposal has drawn its share of criticism from grass-roots neighborhood councils as well as the city of Ventura.

Some home-grown opponents see redevelopment as an expensive boondoggle, and officials of Oxnard’s neighbor to the north have questioned whether 255 acres of agricultural land included in the plan can be considered blighted and ripe for redevelopment.

Nevertheless, the Oxnard City Council is expected to give its blessing to the wide-ranging proposal that is dubbed HERO--the Historical Enhancement and Revitalization of Oxnard project area.

“It’s an area that needs help and new investment,” said Dick Maggio, community development director. “It’s a 30-year program for the city, so it’s not an overnight cure.”

The area suffers from an unemployment rate that averages about 8% compared with a citywide figure of 2%, officials said. Vacancy rates are about 36% versus 9% citywide.

Under the plan, the city would spend $230 million--the rest of the money is devoted to administration and financing--for everything from new storm drains to beautification projects.

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Taxpayers don’t foot the bill directly. Bonds are issued and backed by money generated by property tax increases in the area.

The redevelopment area includes Oxnard Airport and large tracts along Oxnard Boulevard and Saviers Road.

“It’s the spine of the city, it’s the heart of the city,” Councilman Dean Maulhardt said. “This is a way to put a little money back in 30- to 40-year-old areas that need some redevelopment. . . . We’re trying to put as much money to work as opposed to administration--it’s an economy of scale thing.”

Oxnard officials insist the agricultural land is “economically blighted” and that the affected areas are parcels that would be developed anyway.

Ventura officials counter that the plan gobbles up some of what little farmland separates the two cities, but could also undermine their own economic development efforts. One of the parcels in question is about 200 acres of land near

the Ventura Freeway known as the Town Center tract, which was targeted to become the site of a regional mall.

“Oxnard sued the city over the redevelopment of the Buenaventura Mall,” Ventura City Atty. Bob Boehm said, “and if the motivation is to block the rehabilitation of our mall in order to develop the Town Center as a competing regional shopping center, it’s something we need to be concerned with.

“The Town Center does not fit the definition of blight.”

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Oxnard city staff members are required to respond to such concerns at tonight’s meeting.

“We don’t need any more lawsuits,” Maulhardt said. “We can hopefully answer their questions and bring them on board. . . . At this point, the arguments for [the project] outnumber the arguments against.”