Fillmore Seeks to Strengthen Greenbelt Pact

Looking to put some teeth into farmland preservation efforts, Fillmore leaders are moving forward with plans to turn a decades-old greenbelt agreement, shielding 34,000 acres west of the city from large-scale development, into a new municipal law.

The Fillmore City Council has asked two members to begin discussions with officials from neighboring Santa Paula and Ventura County about crafting a plan to strengthen the agreement, adopted in 1980 by all three entities.

The pact was aimed at preserving a swath of unincorporated farmland and open space stretching from Fillmore to Santa Paula. However, it is nonbinding and does not guarantee protection.

Fillmore officials want to change that, pushing for a city law that would firmly put the area off-limits to urban development for the next 20 years.

For the change to take place, officials in Santa Paula and Ventura County would have to enact similar laws. If approved, those laws could only be changed by four-fifths votes of the city councils and the Board of Supervisors.

“One is a commitment, the other has the force of law,” Fillmore Mayor Don Gunderson explained about the difference between the greenbelt agreement and an ordinance. “It just makes it harder for anyone to chip away at that area.”

The move comes during a push by Fillmore to expand its boundaries over the next two decades, a proposal in its early stages but already assailed by critics. At a meeting of a state planning agency earlier this month, city officials unveiled a blueprint for growth that would nearly double the city’s size and significantly boost its population.

However, the move also comes as cities across Ventura County seek to implement anti-sprawl ballot measures, approved by voters in recent years, by creating large new agricultural greenbelts or strengthening existing rules protecting 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.

Other Cities Also Seek Greater Protection

On the Oxnard Plain, the Oxnard City Council is moving to protect through municipal law an existing 4,600-acre zone created years ago by informal agreement with the city of Ventura and the county. And in the bucolic Ojai Valley, officials are pressing forward with plans for a new greenbelt ordinance to protect the orchards and pastureland of the east and Upper Ojai valleys.

The biggest preservation push to date, however, has been around Fillmore, where city and county leaders last year created a new greenbelt shielding 72,000 acres east of the city from large-scale development.

That greenbelt was the largest in county history and the first approved by municipal ordinance.

Although the area already was protected by countywide growth-control laws, supporters say the law added another layer of protection to a vast swath of avocado orchards, citrus trees and open space between Fillmore and the Los Angeles County line.

Now that the area east of Fillmore has been protected, county Supervisor Kathy Long, who represents the area, said she favors doing the same thing to the farmland between Fillmore and Santa Paula.

“I think it’s a smart thing to do with all greenbelts; it’s an additional protection that goes over all those areas,” she said. “And I think we’ve already developed a good strong template for the rest to follow suit.”

Plan Is Months Away From Finalization

The plan is still months from being finalized. Although the Fillmore City Council has appointed members Patti Walker and Cecilia Cuevas to spearhead the issue, neither the county nor the city of Santa Paula has yet to formally consider the matter.

The first greenbelt ordinance took more than a year to put together. But Fillmore officials believe this one could be adopted much faster.

“Now that we’ve done one, it should be easier to do the same thing somewhere else,” Councilwoman Linda Brewster said. “We want to show people out there that we are concerned about growth, that we don’t want to grow too rapidly and lose the small-town feeling we have.”