Ventura County to Put Teeth Into Anti-Sprawl Measure

Cities across Ventura County will soon begin to implement a 1998 anti-sprawl ballot measure by enacting a series of new laws that could one day shield nearly 200,000 acres of farmland and open space from urban development.

City and county officials say they are moving forward with plans to create large new agricultural greenbelts and to strengthen rules that protect existing farm preserves.

In the booming east county, Moorpark, Thousand Oaks and the county are requesting state and federal grants to buy the verdant 2,700-acre Tierra Rejada Greenbelt--the last pasture land separating those two cities and Simi Valley.

In the rural Santa Clara Valley, officials are poised to create a huge new 72,000-acre greenbelt of citrus orchards stretching 13 miles from the Fillmore city limits to the Los Angeles County line.

On the rich Oxnard Plain, the Oxnard City Council has moved to place into municipal law an existing 4,600-acre zone created years ago by informal agreement with Ventura and the county. And it is considering a smaller farm zone near Point Mugu.

In the bucolic Ojai Valley, city officials are backing a new zone of at least 10,000 acres to protect the orchards and pastures of the east and Upper Ojai valleys.

“There’s a lot of movement right now,” county Supervisor Frank Schillo said. “We’ve taken the voters’ wishes seriously.”

This new push is part of a countywide effort to strengthen six existing greenbelt agreements that cover 83,000 acres and to create six new greenbelts that more than double the size of the original zones.

As called for in Measure A, approved by voters in November 1998, the agreements would be implemented by city and county ordinances instead of the current informal handshake arrangements formed through simple resolutions. That would make them harder to change and subject to public hearing before repeal.

County planner Gene Kjellberg, who monitors local anti-sprawl efforts, said the potential purchase of the Tierra Rejada Greenbelt is particularly important because government ownership would preserve the grassy strip forever.

“If they could permanently protect this land, that would be a quantum leap compared to what we’ve done before,” he said. “This process could provide the model for how other greenbelts are planned for the future.”

Indeed, Schillo and Supervisor John K. Flynn are discussing with a local farmland conservation agency how to pool their efforts to buy development rights on farms within the greenbelts. The agency has received $2 million in grants since 1993. The Board of Supervisors will consider Tuesday providing a county planner to devise a purchase plan.

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But the path to preservation, though paved with a two-thirds voter majority in 1998, has not always been smooth.

Fillmore appeared headed toward creation of the new Fillmore-Piru Greenbelt last fall. The City Council said the new zone would send a strong message to Newhall Land & Farming Co., which plans a 70,000-resident community nearby in Los Angeles County and owns 15,000 acres in this county.

But the council stopped cold in November, when Santa Clara Valley growers and farmers balked, insisting that as part of the deal Ventura County tighten its zoning rules to exclude industries such as gravel pits and garbage dumps from farm zones.

Fillmore Councilman Roger Campbell, the city’s point man on the issue, said the county has responded, and a greenbelt deal should be back on the table before long.

County officials said a set of new restrictions for farm and open-space zones will be considered by the county Planning Commission next month. But there’s no consensus yet about what types of construction may be banned from these greenbelts. Every local city seems to have a different list of activities considered onerous, county planner Debbie Millais said.

“We have about nine pages of [contested] uses,” she said. “Everybody has a different view of what should be allowed.”

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Keith Turner, county planning director, said the county is studying rules that would require large buffer spaces between farms and nonagricultural uses, or even fencing. And a special zone might be created for existing industries, since they cannot legally be forced to shut down.

Campbell said Fillmore wants to make sure that existing nuisances, such as the Toland Landfill and the S.P. Milling Boulder Creek mining project, are not expanded and that similar new industries are not approved.

“We want things out of the agricultural zones that don’t have anything to do with farming,” he said.

Campbell said he thinks county revisions will prompt local cities to collectively back new and stronger greenbelt laws.

“This is going to start moving forward again,” he said. “It is really important that we have better assurances that there won’t be any further development from here to the L.A. County line. That will be my legacy.”

Officials in Moorpark, Thousand Oaks and the county are also upbeat about keeping the Tierra Rejada as it is. They have solicited the help of Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), state Sen. Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley) and Assemblyman Tony Strickland (R-Thousand Oaks).

Money to buy the land could come from special federal accounts set up for land and water conservation and farmland protection, Kjellberg said. Assistance might also come from a new state farmland conservation program, he said. Two state propositions passed in March, providing $3 billion for urban parks and water projects, also might be tapped to help buy the greenbelt.

The Tierra Rejada overture is the brainchild of Moorpark Mayor Patrick Hunter, who acknowledges that it is in its formative stages.

“But I think we’re really laying the groundwork for the future,” Hunter said. “We would buy the land and keep it in some sort of public trust. My focus is on the area directly adjacent to the Reagan Library. We start there and mushroom out.”

Despite the lack of details, Gallegly said he likes the idea.

“I find it very intriguing,” said Gallegly, a former Simi Valley mayor. “It’s still very vague, but it’s consistent with what we started 20 years ago when we approved the first greenbelt because we didn’t want the cities to all grow together.”

Gallegly said his staff will help build a detailed Tierra Rejada plan and find the money to preserve the greenbelt. He believes millions of dollars might be available through the House’s Resources Committee, where he has served 13 years.

“There’s always money,” he said. “Its just a matter of getting a detailed program together.”

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But there is no unanimity yet on the Tierra Rejada proposal among east county residents or city officials.

Dozens of angry property owners turned up at a town hall meeting in Thousand Oaks in March to protest any curbs on the use of their ranches.

“There were conflicting opinions--a lot of conflict,” said Schillo, who hosted the discussion at the East Valley Sheriff’s Station. “There were farmers who want to stay farmers and farmers who want to sell their property for development. There were people who want the valley to stay exactly as it is, and owners who want to put more houses on their land.”

And officials from Simi Valley--the fourth jurisdiction needed to create a strong greenbelt agreement--were absent.

“It certainly would be nice if we had Simi Valley joining us on this,” Schillo said. “You don’t want to do things unilaterally. We’re all on that greenbelt. And if you have one person who says they’re not going to honor that, then you have a problem. I’d like to know what their problems are, so we can address them.”

Mike Sedell, city manager in Simi Valley, said his city supports efforts “to enhance the sanctity of the greenbelt.”

But Simi Valley council members think the Tierra Rejada is already protected through a greenbelt resolution signed in 1982, he said. He sees no need for the city to be any more involved at this point.

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“If there isn’t a problem, why does government need to be involved? If it’s not broke, why fix it?” he said. “Excluding any pressing need to act, the council felt it best to leave it alone.”

Nor are Simi Valley officials certain of the wisdom of neighboring jurisdictions in asking state and federal officials for money to buy the greenbelt. Sedell noted the lack of a detailed plan identifying what parcels would be purchased first.

“Until we see a business plan, we don’t know what they’re asking for,” he said. “All we’ve been asked to do is to send a letter and ask for money. But we’ve got a lot of other letters out there asking for money. And we need to prioritize.”

Thousand Oaks Planning Director Phil Gatch said his city likes the plan. Government acquisition of open space was pioneered locally in Thousand Oaks, where a city open-space conservation agency has acquired nearly 14,000 acres over 30 years.

Now, Schillo and Flynn, co-chairmen of a committee formed in 1999 to implement Measure A preservation, want to take that concept into the realm of farmland. The ballot measure not only called for permanent greenbelts but also the creation of a conservation district to acquire farmland and open space.

The two supervisors met recently with the board of the Ventura County Agricultural Land Trust Conservancy, a private nonprofit group formed years ago for that very purpose.

Schillo and Flynn are asking the Board of Supervisors to lend a half-time staff person to the trust for six months. “They need to identify properties that could be acquired,” Schillo said. “They have $2 million, but they can’t use any of that for administration.”

Oxnard also has approved an ordinance supporting a permanent greenbelt between Oxnard and Ventura. Talks are ongoing between county planners and the city.

“I think we should make the greenbelt tougher,” Oxnard Mayor Manuel Lopez said. “That would be a step in the right direction and have long-term implications.”

And the county is working with Oxnard, and talking with the Navy, to possibly create a 4,000-acre greenbelt south of Highway 1 near the Point Mugu Naval Weapons Testing Station.

Flynn thinks Ojai, a bastion of slow growth and farmland preservation, will be among the first cities to place a greenbelt into municipal law. City and county planners have discussed putting a large portion of the east and Upper Ojai valleys, north of the Sulphur Mountain ridgeline, in a sprawling new greenbelt.

“I’m all for it, of course,” Ojai Mayor Suza Francina said. “That’s what I envision for Ojai with all my heart and soul. Ojai is a sacred valley. So it makes total sense that we would work toward a greenbelt ordinance.”

Progress has been slower on other fronts.

Debate over the eventual growth boundaries of Santa Paula has stalled work there on codifying two existing greenbelts on the city’s east and west flanks.

“Are we willing to put into some kind of agreement more than we have?” Councilman Jim Garfield said.

“I think we will be.”

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Only a mailer has been sent to residents of tony Hidden Valley near Thousand Oaks, notifying them of the county’s interest in creating a greenbelt there.

And long-range plans to establish huge greenbelts in the Las Posas Valley and north of Fillmore and Moorpark have languished on the back burner.

“It took us a long time to get started,” Flynn said, “but now we’re moving forward.”