New Attitudes About Land

The degree to which Ventura County’s attitudes toward land use are changing couldn’t have a much better illustration than last week’s defeat of plans to build a new school in a greenbelt east of Oxnard.

The Local Agency Formation Commission, better known as LAFCO, unanimously rejected the city’s request to annex a 14-acre sod field at the east end of Emerson Avenue for construction of Juan Soria Elementary School. The commission endorsed its executive officer’s analysis that building a school on agricultural land would set a dangerous precedent in an era when two-thirds of Ventura County voters strongly support limiting development to existing urban areas.

Farmland preservation was just one argument against the site. Another--the potential peril of placing schools next to chemical-dependent agricultural operations--received extra emphasis from a recent pesticide-drift incident that caused illness and discomfort among students and others at Mound Elementary School in Ventura.

Saying no to annexation of this site was the right decision and we commend LAFCO for standing firm after the Oxnard Elementary School District, Oxnard City Council and state environmental officials said yes. Unfortunately, the school district’s insistence on pursuing this site despite all the negative factors has cost the district about $500,000 on environmental testing and planning and--perhaps even more critical--a year of lost time.

We agree that the district needs to quickly build several schools to keep up with Oxnard’s booming population. We concede that ideal school sites are scarce. Although a committee of parents and community members recently gave the school board a list of 29 alternative sites, many of those have drawbacks of their own.

Now it is up to the school board to adjust to the new reality that Ventura County no longer views its farmland simply as acreage that hasn’t been developed yet. With innovative design and creative thinking, some of those 29 sites already within city limits can be put to use.

At the same time, the Oxnard City Council and Planning Commission need to move school capacity way up on their list of priorities for new developments. No housing proposals should be approved until the developer provides sites for the schools needed to accommodate their young customers.

The Soria School site decision was neither simple nor easy. It was never, as the school district attempted to portray it, a matter of being for or against the children.

Instead it came down to a question of whether land-use decisions in Ventura County would be made the way they have historically been made--nearly always at the expense of the agriculture county residents claim to hold dear--or whether a government body’s actions would reflect the new attitudes.