Ballot Measure Tricky Issue for Slow-Growth Crusaders in Ventura

For years their argument has been that in bucolic Ventura County, high-stakes decisions about growth must be left up to voters.

Now, founders of Save Open Space and Agriculture Resources have found themselves in a tricky position: They are fighting to kill a measure that asks voters to approve a 1,390-home development in Ventura.

Critics say the move reveals the true motivation behind SOAR: to halt any and all development.

But slow-growth leaders maintain there is more at stake in this measure than the luxury hillside homes it would clear the way to build.

Not only is the initiative unconstitutional, they argue, it would set a dangerous precedent for the future of growth-control laws in Ventura County--which planning experts have called “ground zero” for California’s growing anti-sprawl movement.

“This kind of initiative is not what voters had in mind when they passed SOAR,” said Ventura County Supervisor Steve Bennett, one of the architects of the county’s historic growth-control measures. “This is someone turning SOAR on its head.”

Later this month, a judge will decide the measure’s fate. Lawyers for both sides are scheduled to make their case at an Aug. 30 hearing in Ventura County Superior Court.

Amy Forbes, a Los Angeles land-use attorney who represents the longtime property owners of the hillside land, said the Open 80 Master Plan Act is constitutional and should not be shot down before voters get a chance to speak.

“They’re trying to scare people with arguments about process,” she said. “They don’t want you to look at the substance of the plan because they’re afraid you might like it.”

In the last decade, Ventura County has become one of the most growth-restrictive local jurisdictions in the nation.

The movement was begun in the early 1990s by two former Ventura council members, Bennett and Oxnard attorney Richard Francis, who wrote the first SOAR growth-control initiative for the seaside city.

Since then, residents in every major local city have overwhelmingly approved SOAR measures intended to restrict urban expansion into agricultural land or open space. The new laws require voter approval of projects outside a city’s designated urban boundaries.

Some cities also have passed ordinances blocking housing on ridgelines, and two new growth-tightening measures are on the November ballot.

Last fall in Ventura, residents passed Measure P, putting restrictions on extending city services such as water and sewer into the unincorporated hillsides.

In all of these efforts, the message to policymakers has been clear: Let voters decide.

There have been only a few tests of this philosophy in Ventura County, including a church expansion in Ventura and a nursing home in Ojai. Neither stirred much controversy.

The Open 80 plan is a hot-button proposal in part because it is unlike anything voters have had to face in the post-SOAR world, said Bill Fulton, a Ventura-based regional planning expert.

First, it is the only initiative so far to propose residential development--1,390 housing units plus 40,000 square feet of commercial space.

Second, it takes a much different approach than the one SOAR leaders say they originally envisioned, which was for voters to “ratify” developments already approved by the City Council.

Instead, hillside landowners have crafted a detailed plan--stopping short of intricate tract maps and home designs--that they will take to the voters for approval before they take it to the City Council. The result is what some call ballot-box development.

Proponents say they took that route for two main reasons: The requirement for voter approval of hillside development as set out by Measure P, and the fact that existing city codes would make it difficult to apply for permits to build the kind of master-planned community they are proposing.

“It makes no sense to waste the city’s time and resources if the voters don’t want this,” said Margaret Merryman, a west Ventura resident and citizen spokeswoman for the project. “We’re offering 3,000 acres of open space for the opportunity to build 1,390 homes, and we’re asking people, ‘Are you OK with this?’ ”

But those explanations do not satisfy SOAR leaders or the Citizens for Hillside Preservation, the main activist group fighting the plan.

Opponents say that while the idea of trading the right to build hillside homes for a big chunk of open space may be simple, the agreement presented to the voters is not.

It is 165 pages long and includes a wordy legal document known as a development agreement. Such contracts are common for housing projects in California but typically arise out of negotiations between the city and the developer, not by initiative.

In this case, the hillside landowners--three family corporations representing 320 people--wrote the development agreement themselves without input from the city.

Forbes, however, said the contract was modeled after negotiated agreements from other cities. It also took into account conversations with city staff that have occurred over the last six years, she said.

According to Forbes, the agreement was a way the landowners could make two things binding: that they would have to give the city the promised open space, and that city leaders could not change the rules on them--such as arbitrarily downzoning their land--midway through the process.

City Council members will have the ability to vote on the details of the plan, which automatically triggers an environmental impact report, she said.

Still, many say they fear the agreement will “lock in” approvals upfront, before crucial environmental and traffic studies are complete.

“They have filled this thing with technical outs that make it look like the city has discretion, but in practical terms, I believe that is wrong,” said Fulton, the planning expert, who has taken a position against Open 80. “Amy Forbes is such a great lawyer that they can wiggle out of a lot of the criticism.”

The Open 80 plan got on the ballot after volunteers and paid consultants gathered more than 11,400 valid signatures.

Both sides agree that such a voter-led development initiative is unprecedented in the state.

But, Bennett and Francis said, it’s also illegal.

Last month, SOAR filed a lawsuit in an attempt to get the initiative removed from the ballot before the election. The California Constitution prohibits initiatives from naming any specific company that would benefit from the measure, the suit contends.

Forbes said the argument is a red herring. A recent case in Albany, Calif., set a precedent for development agreements to be placed on the ballot in areas where voters have passed laws asking to be responsible for land-use decisions, she said.

“The citizens of Ventura clearly have said they have the power to decide,” she said. “It’s the essence of home rule.”

Open 80 supporters also call the lawsuit hypocritical.

“Here they fought very hard to make sure voters decided whether a project could go through,” said Robert Ryan, a Ventura physician. “And now they say this is too complex, and that the voters aren’t smart enough to figure this out?”

Francis and Bennett dispute that their position is a contradiction.

“We do think the public should vote, but after they are given the facts,” Francis said. “It should not be based just on a sugarcoated, self-dealing measure.”

The strict laws may have intended to enable people to simply vote “No” on projects, but what they really did was give citizens the opportunity to vote “Yes” or “No,” said Ventura Mayor Ray Di Guilio.

“Voters are now realizing how complicated and complex it is to make land-use decisions,” Di Guilio said. “They better get used to it, because this is what they asked for.”