Greenbelt Vital Backup for SOAR

If you’re wearing suspenders do you also need a belt? It couldn’t hurt.

And so, even though the Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources (SOAR) initiatives have theoretically suspended urban expansion into Ventura County’s orchards and cropland, county officials are pressing ahead with plans for new and stronger greenbelts to accomplish the same goal.

First step: Declaring a 40,000-acre zone running from Fillmore 13 miles east to the county line off-limits to development--most pointedly, off-limits to westward expansion of the controversial Newhall Ranch project. That plan would build homes for 70,000 new residents astraddle California 126 on the Los Angeles County side of the line. Ventura County supervisors have fought vigorously to stop that project. The proposed greenbelt would at least keep it from sprawling into Ventura County, where the Newhall Land & Farming Co. owns another 10,000 acres it would like to build on.

Fillmore city officials and county Supervisor Kathy Long hope to finalize the new greenbelt by year’s end. It would be the first tangible move to carry out the wishes of the 69% of Ventura County voters who supported Measure A on last November’s ballot. That advisory measure called for giving the force of law to six current informal greenbelt agreements and creating another five greenbelts, exploring formation of a countywide land conservation district and developing a public education program on land-use issues.

The Fillmore greenbelt plan will be presented Wednesday to the Santa Clara Valley Advisory Committee, dominated by farmers and ranchers, and could go before the Fillmore City Council next month. Other new greenbelts are proposed for the hillside area north of Simi Valley and Moorpark and for the Las Posas, Upper Ojai and Hidden valleys.

We support more and stronger greenbelts, in accord with our belief that keeping agriculture and housing apart is the best way to ensure the healthy success of both. Homes for the growing population must be found, but we believe this can be done within the bounds of Ventura County’s 10 cities--as the voters who supported SOAR and Measure A decreed.