Residents Criticize Report on Mall Plan

An environmental study of a proposed shopping mall at the old Pacific 101 Drive-In in Ventura fails to adequately address traffic, pollution and transportation issues, say residents living near the project site.

City officials disagreed with the residents’ assessment offered Wednesday at a meeting of the Environmental Impact Review Committee.

The 26-acre Ventura Gateway project, anchored by a Home Depot and a two-story Barnes & Noble bookstore, is proposed for the defunct drive-in theater property.

The city’s Design Review Committee will discuss the project Monday, and the plan could reach the Planning Commission’s agenda by May 2.

Wednesday’s meeting was designed to approve the project’s environmental study and not the project itself, said Deputy City Manager Mary Walsh.

“We’re not a decision-making body,” Walsh said about the committee reviewing the study.

Instead, the document was a “good-faith effort at full disclosure,” she said, and should be accepted by the city.

Several residents said that locating a Home Depot next to a residential neighborhood would bring too much traffic, noise and pollution.

Val Bettin, who lives across Telephone Road from the proposed mall, said that new houses in the area will add more cars and pedestrians to an already busy intersection and that mall traffic would be too much.

Building the mall would show a “thoughtless and callous disregard of the justifiable needs and wishes of the current residents,” Bettin said.