Error Voids Beach Project Annexation

The city’s failure to list a landowner for one of the last major developments along the Ventura County coast has forced a county planning agency to reconsider the controversial project.

Also, the Sierra Club and the California Native Plant Society have protested the project’s annexation to the city, saying the Local Agency Formation Commission based its approval on an incomplete environmental report.

The Native Plant Society further says that LAFCO approved the annexation based on claims that the society and the developer had agreed on a plan to save an endangered plant.

LAFCO approved annexation of 91 acres in April for construction of the 337-home North Shore at Mandalay Bay project on a former oil dump.

But now LAFCO officials say Oxnard’s annexation application was improper because the city failed to gain the consent of the owner of a canal on the property, Houston-based MRT Services, a division of Reliant Energy.

Oxnard had the consent of the site’s developer, Ron Smith, and the canal’s previous owner, Southern California Edison. But it failed to get the new owner’s permission.

“Even if it’s a minor area, it doesn’t matter,” said Everett Millais, executive officer of LAFCO. “We relied on misinformation in making our decision.”

Oxnard officials called the mistake an oversight, saying they presented the papers to MRT Services for a signature, but failed to get them back.

“That was an unfortunate misunderstanding between the developer, the consultant and the city,” Oxnard Planning Director Marilyn Miller said. “We thought we had consent. We wouldn’t have gone to LAFCO if we’d known it hadn’t happened. We didn’t follow up the way we should have.”

The annexation will be reconsidered June 21.

Thomas Snowdon, plant manager at MRT Services’ Mandalay Bay power plant, objected to the annexation primarily because he feared homeowners in the new subdivision would complain about noise and pollution from his plant.

Snowdon said he would likely come to an agreement with the developer if he can get assurances that new homeowners will sign a statement pledging not to file complaints about the plant.

“I don’t feel that I’ve been railroaded,” Snowdon said. “We just need to get in touch with each other.”

The city could choose to annex only Smith’s property.

“If we don’t get it, we’ll just take the canal out,” said project consultant Bob Braitman. “But there’s no new information out there. [The environmental groups] are just trying to take a second bite out of the apple.”

If approved by LAFCO, the project would then be considered by the California Coastal Commission.

In addition to the flawed application, environmentalists say LAFCO’s approval was improper because the city of Oxnard falsely claimed a California Native Plant Society lawsuit had been settled.

“Basically, the LAFCO people heard that the [environmental report] is fine. That’s just not true,” said David Magney, an Ojai environmental consultant who is a member of the plant society.

The report understates the project’s effect on the Ventura marsh milk-vetch, environmentalists say. The plant was declared extinct in 1967, but almost 400 plants were discovered on the Mandalay site in 1997. The society has asked that the plant be declared an endangered species.

Critics question how the city could make the mistake in the application.

“How can you miss something as big as a power plant? It just slipped through the cracks?” said Alan Sanders, a local spokesman for the Sierra Club. “Things like endangerment issues and use of public resources: That all slipped through the cracks too?”

The city maintains that the project is the most efficient way to clean up the old oil dump, the legacy of 28 years of oil industry dumping.

“There’s a great deal of work being put into cleaning this [site],” Miller said. “There’s an opportunity for the private sector to do the cleanup, and the city or the county or EPA won’t have to pay for it.”

Smith wants to turn the contaminated parcel at the northeast corner of Harbor Boulevard and West 5th Street into a gated community with a lake, park, hiking trail and bicycle path.

He has spent about eight years on the project, and anticipates spending about $3 million to remove and clean up contaminated ground water and as much as 300,000 cubic yards of soil.

Smith said he has spent $300,000 trying to save the milk-vetch, growing seeds at UC Santa Barbara and setting aside a 10-acre parcel. The land is only valuable because he plans to clean it up, he said.

“The only reason the land is still there is that nobody wanted it until me,” Smith said.