Fillmore Trying to Turn Greenbelt Pact Into Law

Seeking to preserve farmland, Fillmore leaders are trying to turn a 21-year-old agreement that shields a 34,000-acre greenbelt from major development into a 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 cement 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 are pushing for a city law that would 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 said of 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.

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 rules protecting farm preserves.

Moorpark, Thousand Oaks and the county are requesting state and federal grants to buy the verdant 2,700-acre Tierra Rejada Greenbelt.

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 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 county growth-control laws, supporters say the law added another layer of protection.

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.”

The plan is still months from being finalized. Neither the county nor Santa Paula has yet to formally consider the matter.