City Violated Building Codes, Grand Jury Says

This city failed to follow its own building codes and growth plan when it approved a 116-home subdivision on land formerly owned by Councilman Dean Maulhardt’s family, the Ventura County Grand Jury reported Tuesday.

As a result, developer Griffin Industries was allowed to build the Seabreeze project on lots much smaller than the city minimum, with front and side yards too small to meet city codes, the grand jury reported.

While declaring approval of the project improper, the grand jury report did not say it was illegal. Nonetheless, city officials acknowledge the past mistakes and say they will not be repeated.

“We are a nation and city of laws, and we have to follow them,” Mayor Manuel Lopez said. “We can’t do whatever we want to expedite things.”

Grand jurors did not criticize Maulhardt, who said in an interview that he abstained during every vote on the project. But they did chastise the city Planning Commission and City Council.

According to the report, 65 of 84 lots examined by the grand jury were smaller than the 2,625-square-foot city minimum for single-family homes, and the smallest lot was only 1,107 square feet.

“As appointed and elected officials, respectively, they are responsible to the voters to ensure that approved development is consistent with both the General Plan and the city code,” the grand jury said in a report signed by Foreman Marvin J. Reeber.

Lopez said that the grand jury’s criticisms are justified.

“When we approve a project, it has to be in compliance with the General Plan, and it wasn’t,” he said.

Lopez said the city made procedural errors in 1996 as Oxnard officials made changes to move commercial and industrial projects quickly through the planning process to keep employers in town and lure new industries.

City Manager Ed Sotelo made the same point in a March 12 letter to the grand jury.

“It appears that the staff may have negligently misled the Planning Commission and City Council by not providing adequate information to support the recommended resolutions and approval of this project,” he wrote.

Sotelo, who took over as city manager in 1998, has blamed his predecessor, Tom Frutchey, for the problems--saying errors were made to expedite the planning process. But he has said that because of the passage of time, the Griffin project is now a legal development.

Sotelo was unavailable Tuesday for comment, and City Atty. Gary Gillig declined to comment on the legality of the development.

But Councilman Tom Holden, a Frutchey ally on a then-divided council, said regardless of staff errors, the council knew what it was doing when it approved the project.

The development made sense because it converted industrial land that had languished without development into a residential project that conforms with home construction next to it.

“Logistically, there may have been something left out of the process. Mistakes happen,” Holden said. “But from a policy standpoint, it was clear from the very beginning that we were changing the land use from industrial to residential. As far as land use, there were no surprises for the City Council.”

The council twice reviewed the project’s concept before the detailed plan worked its way through the Planning Commission to a final council vote, Holden said.

The council knew lots would be particularly small, he said. But city officials liked the idea of using land more efficiently because of countywide efforts to save agricultural land and open space, Holden said.

City reforms to speed up planning approvals were also justified, he said.

Maulhardt, whose family owned the 33-acre Seabreeze parcel for 130 years, said he had nothing to do with the negotiations with Griffin because it was clear that the matter would come before the City Council.