Suit Seeks to Halt Camarillo Home Project

Plans for a major development approved by Camarillo should be halted because the city did not require homes for people with extremely low incomes, according to a lawsuit filed in Ventura County Superior Court.

“In terms of the amount of very low-income housing that’s needed and the amount that’s been built, the city is way out of whack,” said Barbara Macri-Ortiz, an Oxnard attorney representing two low-income Camarillo residents and a low-income former resident. “Basically, they’ve created a very serious fair-housing claim,” she said.

Camarillo City Manager Jerry Bankston declined comment on the suit Friday, saying the city’s attorneys have not had time to analyze it.

At issue is a 1,060-home project called Village at the Park, to be built on a strawberry field off the Ventura Freeway. The project calls for an elementary school, a 55-acre park, a site for a YMCA, and 57 units priced for people who meet the state definition of “low income.”

The project, however, would offer no units to people of “very low income,” as required by the state, according to the suit.

By state standards, low income means 80% of an area’s median income. In Camarillo, that is $59,000 a year for a family of four. Very low income is $35,000 for the same family.

“They’ve taken care of everyone’s interests except the low-wage workers who service the community,” said Macri-Ortiz, who has sued the city of Oxnard three times on similar grounds. Settled before trial, those suits led to greater willingness of developers in Oxnard to consider the needs of the poor, she said.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, claims that Camarillo’s approval of the project in January was invalid because the city was working with a flawed general plan.

Officials had exceeded a state deadline for updating the plan’s housing section by five years, according to the suit.

Officials also had ignored the most recent estimates on the number of low-income housing units the city would need to build, according to the suit. Such estimates are compiled by the Southern California Assn. of Governments.

Plaintiffs in the suit include mechanic Jesus Rios, a lifelong Camarillo resident who has moved himself, his wife and two children in with his farm worker parents for lack of affordable housing.

Another plaintiff, farm worker Maurino Bruno, pays $850 a month -- half his income -- to rent a two-bedroom home in Camarillo for his wife, five children and disabled father-in-law, the suit stated.

Farm worker Rosa Rodriguez, the third plaintiff, had to leave Camarillo for a cramped home in Oxnard after the home she rented was sold, according to the suit.

Village at the Park is financed by several investment groups.