Ventura County Measures Aim to Clamp a Lid on Urban Sprawl

They want to lock up Ventura County--and give voters the key.

With the strictest set of growth control measures ever proposed in Southern California, the activists behind the Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources (SOAR) campaign are hoping to halt urban sprawl in Ventura County by stripping politicians of the power to permit it.

Meanwhile, a similar measure will go before San Diego County voters in November. Dubbed the Rural Heritage and Watershed Initiative, it seeks to prevent urbanization in the San Diego back country for the next 30 years unless a majority of voters says otherwise.

As usually seems to be the case with Southern California’s slow growth activism--the last major drives were during the 1980s building boom--the campaigns come as earthmovers are picking up steam and the real estate market is bursting through the roof.

Convinced that elected leaders are steering Ventura County down the same path as Orange County and Los Angeles--with, as they see it, distinct cities merging into a homogeneous mass of concrete--activists say the time has come for voters to take the reins on critical land-use decisions.

A countywide measure would prevent, through 2020, farmland and open space outside cities from being rezoned for development without voter approval, forcing politicians to stick to existing blueprints for growth.

SOAR measures in Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Camarillo, Oxnard and Santa Paula would bar those cities from expanding beyond designated borders unless voters decided it was OK. Another measure will go before Moorpark voters early next year; Ventura voters approved such a measure in 1995.

Not surprisingly for an area that prides itself on its country feel, the measures have become the hottest political issue to hit Ventura County in a long time.

“It’s our future, so why shouldn’t we decide?” said former Ventura Councilman Steve Bennett, who founded SOAR along with former Mayor Richard Francis. “Year after year, people vote for politicians because they say they’re going to stop urban sprawl, and year after year, the politicians go and do something different after the election.”

With equal fervor, opponents argue that Ventura County’s existing land-use policies--already the toughest in Southern California--have clearly stemmed sprawl, and that “ballot box zoning” measures are a radical step that would be rife with unintended consequences.

All major farm leaders oppose SOAR, characterizing it as a selfish effort by Johnny-come-lately suburbanites to protect pretty vistas without purchasing the land.

“We in agriculture are the poster boys for SOAR, but this is not good for agriculture, and the ag community does not support it,” said Rob Roy of the Ventura County Agricultural Assn., a leader of the anti-SOAR Coalition for Community Planning. “This is a very deceptive measure. It has nothing to do with saving agriculture and everything to do with no growth.”

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Every major business organization and nearly every chamber of commerce opposes SOAR, saying the measures would drive up land prices, hurting the county’s economic competitiveness and possibly forcing expanding firms out of the county.

Housing and building industry groups also condemn the measures, saying they would drive housing costs so high, and keep new construction so scarce, that many residents would find it impossible to afford a home.

In short, opposition to SOAR is fierce among the county’s traditional power brokers, and voters will surely be flooded with a flurry of opposition mailers, media ads and telephone pitches in coming weeks.

Like SOAR, which held the largest petition drive in Ventura County history this year, the San Diego campaign shattered local signature-gathering records. It is being opposed by a well-heeled coalition of farmers and property rights advocates.

“The history of land use down here demonstrates that initiatives are the only way to break the stranglehold of special interests,” said Duncan McFetridge, a former Ojai resident who leads the San Diego drive. “This is a great example of the right to petition the government, because we can document there’s been a massive legislative failure allowing urban sprawl.”

Growth control drives to take zoning power from politicians have become commonplace in the Bay Area in recent years. But urban planning experts say the Ventura and San Diego county campaigns represent the most militant attempt to crack down on runaway growth in the history of Southern California.

“These would clearly be the toughest restrictions on geographical growth expansion in Southern California,” said William Fulton, author of “The Reluctant Metropolis” and editor of the California Planning & Development Report. “There’s a major shift here. It started in Northern California, and it will make its way to all of Southern California before long.”

Some opponents worry that if the measures carry Southern California--a longtime building industry stronghold--they could pass anywhere in the nation.

Giving NIMBYs--homeowners who cry “not in my backyard” about proposed developments--such veto power has caused growth to leapfrog further inland in the Bay Area, they note.

“I see the direction this is heading in, and it’s disastrous,” said Dennis Moresco, president of the California Building Industry Assn., one of the groups funding the anti-SOAR campaign.

“We can’t build inside the cities because the NIMBYs come and shut us down. We can’t build on farmland because people want to save the farms. So where do you want us to build?”

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Though they deeply resent SOAR and the way its backers are attempting to sell its campaign to the public, even the most spirited opponents concede one point: The measures are legal.

The basis for the group’s effort is a 1990 Napa County initiative known as Measure J, which was upheld by the California Supreme Court in 1995, capping a lengthy legal fight.

The landmark ruling dismissed the opposition’s key argument--that a general plan, or state-mandated growth blueprint, could not be amended by initiative--and has spawned a handful of copycat measures.

“The electorate of Napa County has sought to ensure a greater stability in land-use policy than shifting political and economic currents might otherwise provide,” Justice Stanley Mosk wrote in the Supreme Court’s majority opinion.

Many believe that the Ventura County initiatives, which would establish a series of urban growth boundaries around six cities, could lead to denser development within existing neighborhoods. That’s what has happened in Napa County, Portland, Ore., and other areas where such measures have already taken effect, planners say.

For the boundaries to work, large-lot, single-family ranch homes must make way for townhouses and apartments. Otherwise, sprawl will just carry over to a nearby community, continuing the cycle of poor land use, planners say.

“People need to realize that the growth is going to go somewhere,” said Napa County Planning Director Jeff Redding. “If the growth is not going to take place in the unincorporated areas, it’s going to take place in their neighborhoods. I feel it in my own neighborhood. We’re growing by leaps and bounds.”

But SOAR opponents say such a radical philosophical shift in community planning would never fly in Ventura County’s bedroom suburbs. What would more likely occur if the SOAR measures became law and development decisions were left to voters, they say, is an increase in NIMBY attitudes within cities--and no growth.

“What I’m really worried about--how do I say this nicely--is that the average resident is not going to take time to study a project on its fiscal and environmental impacts,” said Ventura County Supervisor Judy Mikels, a SOAR opponent. “They are probably going to make a decision based on emotion, ‘No more,’ and that worries me.”

SOAR leaders acknowledge that by forcing all development inward, their measures would probably lead cities to alter their approach to land use, possibly resulting in denser housing.

But they say there is plenty of room within cities to accommodate growth without making radical changes. The measures would only hold cities to existing growth plans, they note, and those plans allow for more than 60,000 houses to be built in the county by 2020.

“Cities will look around and see that what they have is finite,” Francis said. “Those borders are going to result in better projects, because there isn’t going to be room for mistakes anymore. It’s about time some of our elected leaders started thinking that way.”