Oxnard Sues Ventura Over New Project

The latest round in the “mall wars” occurred New Year’s Evewhen Oxnard officials filed a lawsuit against the city of Ventura over its new midtown redevelopment plan that includes the Pacific View Mall.

Attorneys for the city of Oxnard and Ventura resident Sohrab Roshanian, a co-plaintiff, allege that Ventura’s Midtown Corridor Redevelopment Plan violates state law that mandates that such projects be done in blighted areas.

The suit further alleges that the plan fails to adequately address noise and traffic congestion on the Ventura Freeway at the Santa Clara River Bridge, the major artery into the mall, formerly known as the San Buenaventura Mall.

“I think that those are all groundless statements. This is about dollars and economics,” said Ray Di Guilio, Ventura’s deputy mayor. “They don’t care about the citizens of Ventura and our community. This is about the economic vitality in the city of Oxnard.”

Not so, said Oxnard City Atty. Gary Gillig.

“It’s a problem. Traffic backs up from Ventura through Oxnard to Camarillo,” Gillig said. “There are ways to address these environmental concerns,” but that hasn’t happened, he said.

Additionally, Gillig accused Ventura of trying to acquire public dollars for the Pacific View Mall expansion by including the project in the redevelopment plan. The Ventura mall is being privately redeveloped.

Di Guilio said Ventura city officials had similar concerns about including the mall in the redevelopment plan, and only did so after a careful review.

The lawsuit comes nearly a month after Ventura approved the redevelopment plan and more than a year after expansion began at the Pacific View Mall.

Despite several legal challenges to the mall expansion, including allegations by Oxnard that it was improperly financed, Ventura has thus far prevailed in court.

At issue now are the effects the redevelopment plan will have on Oxnard.

“We advised Ventura a long time ago we believe they were outside the law,” Oxnard City Manager Ed Sotelo said of the plan. “What we are trying to do is to get Ventura to sit down at the table with Oxnard and resolve our issues.”

For more than 10 years, the cities have battled over malls.

The first legal salvo was fired 13 years ago when Ventura sued Oxnard over the proposed $500-million Oxnard Town Center mall, which was to be the county’s largest.

That suit was resolved when Oxnard and Ventura signed a settlement in which Oxnard agreed not to fully develop Town Center until the Santa Clara River bridge was widened--something the state is expected to do in the next century.

Town Center is planned for a site just off the Ventura Freeway between Ventura and Oxnard.

More suits followed, and with each one Oxnard has hoped to hold on to hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual sales tax revenue generated by The Esplanade mall in that city.

But with the expansion of Pacific View Mall, the future of Oxnard’s mall growth has been threatened.

The key to the Pacific View Mall expansion is the relocation of The Esplanade’s anchor stores--Sears and Robinsons-May--to Ventura.

Along with those two department stores, the Pacific View Mall, scheduled for completion in October, will include a second floor of smaller shops and double the size of the 33-year-old midtown shopping center.

Oxnard officials have said the two cities could work together to develop the Town Center site, which would end the lawsuits and ensure that whatever was built was acceptable to both communities.

Ventura City Manager Donna Landeros said she is not certain Oxnard will ever stop firing legal challenges.

“They will attack all of the projects until the city [Ventura]” rescinds the bridge settlement, which would allow Oxnard to fully develop Town Center, she said.

Ventura officials will not rescind the agreement to allow Oxnard to expand its mall before the state widens the bridge, Landeros said, since a larger mall could mean an additional 90,000 cars on the Santa Clara River Bridge each day.

“We hate having to do this. We hate the whole dispute. We would really like to have it all resolved,” Landeros said.

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Times Community News reporter Nick Green contributed to this story.