Oxnard Council Approves Redevelopment Project Blanketing 7% of the City

The City Council on Tuesday night approved the city’s fifth and largest redevelopment area.

The 2,229-acre area will cover about 7% of the city and stretch from farmland in north Oxnard to deteriorating commercial properties on Saviers Road to the south.

The area, which suffers higher unemployment and vacancy rates than the rest of the city, is due to be redeveloped during the next 30 years at a cost of about $438 million.

More than two dozen people spoke on the issue, most in favor of the plan.

“I’ve come to the conclusion [that] for south Oxnard, it’s a real opportunity,” said Sylvia Preston, a longtime resident of the Cypress neighborhood. “In the 25 years I’ve been there, it’s the first spotlight to shine on south Oxnard in a positive way.”

Councilman Dean Maulhardt said grass-roots opposition to redevelopment has gradually been overcome as residents learned more about what the project would mean to the city. But he acknowledged that there has to be greater accountability on the part of city officials with redevelopment in the future.

“We need to present a people’s view of redevelopment,” he said. “It’s a big benefit to the city of Oxnard.”

The targeted location includes such aging commercial projects as the Esplanade Mall and the Wagon Wheel area. But it also includes 255 acres of agricultural land that the city considers “economically blighted.”

Ventura officials have questioned the motives of their Oxnard counterparts about the inclusion of about 200 acres of farmland near the Ventura Freeway that was once the proposed site of a regional mall.

They are concerned that development of this tract would not only diminish the buffer of farmland that separates the two cities, but could threaten Ventura’s commercial development efforts.

Meanwhile, the Oxnard council late Tuesday had yet to act on a compromise plan to staunch urban development of the remaining farmland in the Oxnard Plain through 2020, which is expected to be put before voters this fall.

The latest proposal to establish an urban growth boundary would replace an initiative filed earlier this month by a group seeking to halt the paving of more agricultural land. Adoption of such a boundary is intended to confine most new construction to already developed areas.

The proposal is slightly different from both the initiative filed by SOAR--Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources--and another plan that the council rejected March 10.

The latest version would incorporate proposals for two large housing developments--450 homes to be built on 253 acres near River Ridge Golf Course and another 365 homes at Mandalay Bay--that the SOAR initiative does not encompass.

It would also include a 66-acre tract of farmland near Oxnard Airport. Council members wanted to ensure that the city--rather than the county--would control development around the county-owned airport.