Developer to Pay Ventura to Offset Traffic

Developers of the massive RiverPark project in Oxnard have agreed to pay the city of Ventura $4.6 million for roadway improvements to help offset increased traffic from the development.

The Ventura City Council is expected to approve the agreement at its meeting tonight, ending a dispute that focused on the adequacy of the development’s draft environmental impact report.

“The developer has been cooperative,” City Atty. Robert G. Boehm said last week, adding that Ventura and RiverPark officials have “settled their differences.”

A primary concern among city officials was over the developer’s traffic study of the $750-million project, which will include 2,800 homes, a vintage town square, a hotel and convention center, three schools and sports fields.

The study indicated that only the intersection of Johnson and North Bank drives in Ventura would be significantly affected by the nearly 79,000 daily vehicle trips expected to be generated by the project.

As a result, the city of Ventura commissioned an independent traffic study, which identified 14 roadway intersections that would be affected. The adjacent project site is located on the east side of the Santa Clara River.

The Oxnard Planning Commission recently approved the development, and the City Council is expected to take up the issue as early as this month. The developer hopes to break ground before the end of the year, with the first phase of the residential project set to open by early 2004.

The opening is set to coincide with the completion of a new interchange of the Ventura Freeway at Pacific Coast Highway and the widening of the Santa Clara River bridge.

Negotiations between Ventura and RiverPark developers over additional traffic mitigation measures began in earnest two months ago. But Ventura officials made their concerns known in January when they submitted comments based on the developer’s traffic study.

“It’s just across the river; it’s very much connected to the city,” Boehm said of the project, which would be the largest mixed-use development in county history. “Ventura had to protect its interests.”

Among the needed improvements cited in Ventura’s traffic report were an extension of Olivas Park and North Bank drives, and the widening of Johnson Drive and Telephone and Mills roads. Plans also call for widening the northbound offramp of the Ventura Freeway at Telephone Road and moving the southbound onramp at Johnson Drive to line up with the new Olivas Park Drive extension.

“We didn’t dispute the amount of traffic,” Ventura senior planner Paul Calderwood said of the RiverPark project. “What we didn’t agree on is where the traffic was going after [motorists] left the project.”

The settlement agreement also calls for the developer to pay up to $50,000 for a study of a new Santa Clara River crossing, which could serve as an alternate route for traffic. The developer will assess a fee of all residential and commercial developments to help pay for the traffic improvements.