Moorpark Votes on SOAR Issue, Housing Plan

Voters in this bedroom community went to the polls Tuesday to decide whether to adopt strict growth-control measures and halt construction of the largest housing project in city history.

In early returns, absentee ballots had the Moorpark version of the Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources initiative ahead at the polls while a referendum asking voters to ratify approval of the proposed Hidden Creek Ranch housing project was behind.

Most of the ballots in this special election were uncounted by late Tuesday.

The housing project, proposed by Costa Mesa-based Messenger Investment Co., would add 3,221 homes to the city and boost its population of 29,000 by about one-third.

“We don’t think you can tell much from these early results,” said Gary Austin, a Messenger vice president. “We think that there’s a lot left to be learned in this election.”

Moorpark residents have been forced to wait to settle the growth-control debate that swept across Ventura County last year.

That debate culminated with voters’ approval in November of a countywide SOAR measure that prevents elected officials from rezoning farmland and open space without voters’ approval.

At the same time, voters in Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Camarillo and Oxnard adopted complementary initiatives blocking development outside their borders. A similar measure in Santa Paula was defeated at the polls.

Initially, Moorpark’s SOAR measure was intended for the same ballot.

But while elected leaders in the county and the five cities agreed to place the measures on the fall ballot--acknowledging the initiatives had strong public support--Moorpark council members refused to do so.

They were in the final stages of approving Hidden Creek Ranch and decided instead to place a competing growth-control measure on the ballot that specifically exempted the housing project’s 4,300 acres from the land-use restrictions.

Undaunted, slow-growth activists eventually gathered enough signatures to qualify SOAR for the ballot, but a Superior Court judge removed it on a technicality, leaving only the council’s alternative.

SOAR leaders tried again, collecting enough signatures to place the measure back on the November ballot. But city officials were slow to review the new petitions for authenticity and the deadline for the fall ballot passed, forcing proponents to instead settle for a special election.

The city-backed slow-growth measure was approved by voters in November. In the meantime, growth-control activists qualified the measure attempting to overturn the City Council’s approval in August of Hidden Creek Ranch.

The slow-growth battle produced an especially divisive campaign. Longtime friends parted ways, signature petitioners were harassed by paid agitators and city leaders were accused of caving in to one side or the other.

Even as voters went to the polls Tuesday, those divisions ran deep.

Retired aerospace worker Leonard Patterson, 63, said residents could have avoided the aggravation of a special election and saved the city money by simply allowing Messenger to move forward with the Hidden Creek Ranch proposal.

On Tuesday, the 34-year Moorpark resident voted in support of the housing project and against SOAR, saying he doesn’t believe voters should be able to dictate what property owners can do with their land.

“Hidden Creek is going to come in anyway, whether the city wants it or not,” he said after casting his ballot. “They’ve spent a couple of million dollars on that so far and they aren’t going to let it go away. If Moorpark turns it down, it will just become an unincorporated little town and we’ll have all the traffic with none of the benefits.”

On the other side of the issue, 63-year-old Joe Varnell said he supported SOAR and voted to halt the housing project.

“We don’t want all of those houses built behind us,” he said. “I think Moorpark is big enough as it is.”

Amado Reynoso, 70, said he voted the same way, saying the housing development would bring too many millionaires to the city.

“You’re either pro-millionaires or against them and I’m against them,” he said. “They will come here and try to control the city and I don’t want that.”

Regardless of the outcome of Tuesday’s election, many expect the electoral battle simply to give way to a legal battle as issues surrounding growth and the proposed housing development continue to be sorted out in court.

In fact, a Superior Court judge this week dismissed a lawsuit seeking to invalidate the environmental impact report prepared for Hidden Creek Ranch. Ventura attorney Richard Francis, who filed the lawsuit and was a coauthor of Moorpark’s SOAR measure, said he has not decided whether to appeal the ruling, handed down Monday by Judge Thomas J. Hutchins.

“I think we have to wait and let the chips fall before we try to analyze what to pick up first,” said Francis, who was also a leader in the countywide SOAR movement. “The election is certainly an important part of that analysis. But the bottom line is that it is a flawed EIR and this issue is too important to just let it drop.”

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Times staff writers Kate Folmar and Rod Bosch and Times Community News reporter Andy Samuelson contributed to this story.