Supporters of SOAR Celebrate

After months of campaigning, petitioning and canvassing to limit growth in Ventura County, hundreds of SOAR supporters gathered Sunday afternoon in Camarillo to celebrate their victory.

Holding posters worn at the corners, they hugged one another like long-lost friends, toasted their success and speculated about the future of the Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources movement. And in the festive atmosphere of an election night party, they applauded the hard work of dozens of the campaign’s leaders.

“Today we want to celebrate the largest grass-roots movement in Ventura County history,” said Steve Bennett, the former Ventura councilman who co-founded SOAR with the city’s former mayor, Richard Francis. “Thank you all for making this happen. It takes real optimism to be involved in something like this.”

Bennett and Francis also announced their plans to turn the movement into a nonprofit coalition with the goals of educating residents about growth-control and ensuring that elected officials follow through with implementation of SOAR.

Dave Remund, a plumber in Moorpark, helped campaign for the initiative there, and said he plans to continue his involvement in the effort to restrict development in Southern California. But he said he thinks there are still several battles ahead--against both developers and politicians.

“If our politicians do what their constituents asked them to do, that battle won’t be too hard to fight,” Remund said.

The SOAR battle heated up last year when proponents pushed to get slow-growth initiatives passed countywide and in several cities.

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The initiatives strip elected officials of the power to rezone farmland and open space without voters’ approval through 2020. In other words, it prevents leaders from allowing more growth than current plans allow.

In November, voters overwhelmingly approved a countywide SOAR measure. At the same time, voters in Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Camarillo and Oxnard adopted similar initiatives blocking development just outside city boundaries.

SOAR supporters say residents voted for open space and against urban sprawl.

Earlier this month, Moorpark residents adopted similar land-use controls to confine growth to within the city’s borders and overturned the City Council’s earlier approval of the Hidden Creek Ranch project.

The proposed development, which would have been the largest housing project in city history, would have added 3,221 homes to the city and increased Moorpark’s population by a third during the next two decades.

Developers say the project would also have provided the city and the school district with tens of millions of dollars in building fees.

Opponents of the Moorpark measure say that growth should not be cut off altogether, but should be planned carefully. They argue that the city needs to continue increasing its tax base to provide public services demanded by its residents.

The only slow-growth measure that failed last November was in Santa Paula.

The anti-SOAR coalition, primarily made up of farmers and developers, argued that the initiatives would discourage companies from relocating in Ventura County, drive up land prices and hurt the county’s economic competitiveness.

Housing and building industry groups also opposed the measures, saying that without new housing, prices of existing homes would rise sharply.

Francis told the crowd of about 400 gathered at the Spanish Hills Country Club in Camarillo that he wanted to keep the movement going, and that he would be sending out fliers asking for donations and suggestions.

Moorpark City Councilman Clint Harper, a SOAR supporter, said he is enthusiastic about expanding the movement. Many in the crowd suggested the next target would be to return to the Santa Clara Valley to help Fillmore and Santa Paula residents pass similar initiatives.

“I hope SOAR becomes a permanent organization in Ventura County,” Harper said. “I’d like to see it spread to other communities in California and hopefully nationally as well.”

Ventura farmer Carolyn Leavens said agricultural landowners need to concentrate their efforts to ensure that implementation of the initiatives goes smoothly.

“It’s foolishness to continue to rail against a done deal,” she said in a telephone interview. “We need to find some way to sit down and make this thing work.”