Officials Tour Housing Plan’s Canyon Site

A convoy of four-wheel-drive vehicles carrying government officials bounced along a rutted and winding dirt road that climbed steep hills and crossed a rushing creek almost a dozen times.

Hawks rode wind currents rising over the lush green hills that define narrow Adams Canyon, while cows watched the unusual parade jolt through huge clumps of purple thistle and yellow mustard.

Members of the county’s Local Agency Formation Commission peered out the vehicle’s windows, trying to imagine more than 2,000 homes, two hotels with accompanying golf courses and a school on the stunning canyon’s relatively undisturbed 5,400 acres.

“Clearly there are a lot of environmental and topographical constraints,” city Planning Director Joan Kus said at one point during the tour, adding to the litany of other problems Santa Paula faces if it is to develop the area to the north.

“We need to be very careful when we get out of the cars in Adams Canyon,” Kus had said earlier. “They’ve had a bumper crop of rattlesnakes.”

Such comments provide a clear illustration of some of the challenges that Santa Paula faces in its bid to quadruple its boundaries, building more than 3,800 homes and adding 11,420 residents.

And the tour was a precursor to a decision that commissioners will likely face this year--how much should the city be allowed to grow, especially given the intense debate in the county surrounding the loss of agricultural land and open space?

“It was beautiful scenery,” said Commissioner Bernardo M. Perez, who also is a Moorpark city councilman. But he, like others on the commission, was guarded about the proposed expansion.

“It’s too early in the process to comment right now,” Perez said.

Santa Paula is seeking to expand into scenic Adams Canyon and five other areas surrounding the city over the next 20 years in an effort to stimulate economic growth and provide sorely needed revenues.

City officials are still evaluating how much of the huge potential area for expansion they will ask commissioners to consider later this year.

Indeed, earlier this week, the City Council approved hiring a consultant--a former LAFCO director--to help guide the city through the complex process. The consulting contract does not include two of the most controversial areas under consideration--East Area 1, which comprises 541 acres of agricultural land in the greenbelt between the city and Fillmore, and South Mountain, about which some commissioners have expressed concerns.

“If it’s not going to fly, why spend [consulting] money?” said Councilman John Melton, a fervent opponent of urbanizing agricultural land.

Moreover, Melton filed with the city clerk last week a notice of his intention to place a measure on the fall ballot that would prevent all such development.

His initiative is patterned after one that a group, including Councilwoman Laura Flores Espinosa, is also attempting to have placed before voters that would severely reduce the proposed expansion. Melton derides that effort, noting that advocates propose retaining the area that includes greenbelt-protected farmland.

It was against this backdrop that the tour of Adams and Fagan canyons and East Area 1 took place. Most commissioners had seen the area only on maps. Few longtime city residents have ever ventured onto the privately held land in isolated Adams Canyon.

“I got an appreciation of what they’re really talking about,” Commissioner Jay Scott of Ventura said after the tour. But “the extent and the [expansion] methods are in question.”

Commissioners must decide whether the proposed expansion fits agency guidelines. LAFCO’s dual--and sometimes contradictory--guiding principles require that any expansion be “orderly and logical” and that the agency attempt to preserve agriculture and open space.

Critics say the city’s proposal is anything but “orderly and logical,” pointing out that Adams and Fagan canyons are physically separated from the city and are not natural candidates to be annexed.

Aware of those concerns, Kus took pains to point out to commissioners as the group gazed down into Fagan Canyon that the area would have to become a part of the city as well if Adams were included in the expansion. The much larger Adams Canyon wraps around Fagan and not including the area would create an undeveloped “island” within Santa Paula’s boundaries.

But other questions also surround the proposal to build expensive homes in the two rugged canyons. Critics--as well as some city officials--wonder whether tax revenue from the development would offset the expense of extending police and fire services to rugged areas susceptible to floods, fires and landslides.

“A lot of people seem to be dubious about us taking this whole area,” Kus said as the group stopped briefly at the entrance to Adams Canyon. “Most of the buildable area is up north and you’ve got to get there. We’ve got to take it all to make it economically feasible.”

Councilman Jim Garfield maintains that such development is preferable to building homes on fertile farmland on the valley floor.

But at tour’s end, Commissioner John Rush remained unconvinced of the viability of the proposed expansion.

“There’s a lot of potential,” he said. “There’s a lot of land that could be developed. But I don’t know what the [land-use] patterns will be.”

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Santa Paula Expansion Plans

If approved, the six proposed expansion areas totaling 9,570 acres would more than triple the city’s current acreage. Up to 3,800 homes and more than 4.4. million square feet of commercial space could be built.

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Area Acres 1. Adams Canyon 5,413 2. Fagan Canyon 2,173 3. East Area 1 541 4. East Area 2 26 5. South Mountain 1,291 6. west Area 2 125

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Source: Rincon Consultants Inc.