Chamber Gives SOAR Debate Center Stage in Camarillo

Another chapter in Ventura County’s hottest political melodrama unfolded Tuesday as friends and foes of the SOAR measures squared off under the spotlights of a local dinner theater.

Before a full house of Camarillo Chamber of Commerce members, SOAR leader Richard Francis pitched the growth control measures as a sure-fire way for the county to avoid becoming the next victim of San Fernando Valley-style urban sprawl.

“There’s Van Nuys,” said Francis, pointing to an area on a large map of the valley’s urban patchwork. “There’s Reseda. You don’t know when you’re in one town or another. Frankly, it doesn’t matter.”

His adversary, Rob Roy of the Coalition for Community Planning, then portrayed the measures as an untested growth control experiment flush with negative consequences for the county’s residents and business leaders.

“Ventura County already has the most restrictive land use controls in Southern California,” said Roy, president and general counsel of the Ventura County Agricultural Assn. “There isn’t any compelling reason to approve the SOAR initiatives.”

Widely considered the most far-reaching local issue on the Nov. 3 ballot, a countywide Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources measure would prevent politicians from rezoning farmland and open space outside cities through 2020 without voter approval.

SOAR measures in Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Camarillo, Oxnard and Santa Paula would block the cities from expanding beyond certain borders unless voters agree to it first. Another SOAR measure will go before Moorpark voters in a January special election.

After allowing each representative 10 minutes to present his side, chamber board members asked each a series of questions.

Roy and Francis were then allowed to question each other and answer a series of written questions from the audience before making brief final remarks.

Francis, a former Ventura mayor, repeatedly pointed out that the SOAR measures would in no way change local general plans but would simply force politicians to stick to those growth blueprints unless voters said otherwise.

“Whatever you hear about SOAR is an attack on the current plan,” he said. “It doesn’t change the plan at all.”

Roy, who joked that he was not much of a political speaker and was still learning about the issue, then noted that nearly every major business organization in the county, and all major farm groups, consider SOAR bad law.

The growth controls would hurt farmers by lowering their property values and requiring them to run election campaigns to put up agricultural buildings, he said.

County officials dispute Roy’s interpretation, saying nearly all new agricultural building would be permissible without special elections under SOAR.

“There’s been a real deception with regard to the SOAR campaign,” he said. “I don’t think the purpose of this is to save agricultural resources. We feel the agriculture community would be adversely affected by this.”

Roy contended SOAR would drive housing prices through the roof by limiting new construction. He said a lack of low-cost housing could force major employers such as the Navy base at Point Mugu out of the county.

Francis countered that housing prices will always be high in desirable areas, and SOAR would simply ensure Ventura County maintains its high quality of life.

“How many houses would it take to bring the cost of housing down?” he asked rhetorically.

Roy then asked Francis to name a single major farmer--not a landowner who leases his property, but an actual farmer--who supports SOAR. Francis chafed at the narrow definition, but named a few names.

Francis followed by asking Roy for the percentage of money from out-of-county interests going to the Coalition for Community Planning. Roy declined to give an estimate, saying it will be published in coming financial reports, but stressed the coalition has many supporters.