Ban on Work at Condo Site Lifted

A Ventura County jurist has lifted a temporary ban on construction of a luxury condominium project in downtown Ojai four months after she found the growth-conscious city had violated its own master plan by approving the project.

Melinda A. Johnson, a recently retired Superior Court judge, issued a terse statement this week that allows developers to resume work on the 23-unit Los Arboles Townhomes, planned for three acres next to the towering oak trees of Libbey Park.

“The court hereby dissolves all restraints on the Los Arboles project, and construction may proceed,” Johnson, who now works as a private jurist, wrote in a partial decision.

“A written decision with further explication will follow,” she said

In October, she had found that the project did not meet the city’s strict traffic and construction guidelines.

But in November, the City Council re-approved the project under an amended construction code that allowed the condos to be just 25 feet apart, not 45 as had been required.

The city also sent to the judge additional traffic and environmental impact information from planning experts about the project.

“I think this is certainly a victory for the developers,” City Manager Dan Singer said, “but also for the community, which has not benefited in any way by having a vacant couple of parcels that have been sitting as a construction site.”

The condos, starting at $500,000, would replace 29 tattered homes destroyed years ago to make way for the project, one of only four housing developments allowed in slow-growth Ojai in the last decade.

“We’re delighted,” developer Lance Smigel said. “And we’re anxiously awaiting the rest of her decision.”

Smigel said he hopes to do enough work on the site -- which is pocked with pipes and building materials because construction was stopped abruptly -- to stabilize it in case the winter brings more heavy rain.

But he also wants to meet soon with representatives of two protesting environmental groups to try to resolve outstanding legal issues, he said.

With Johnson’s partial ruling, Smigel and co-developer Lois Rice have apparently prevailed in a suit filed last year by Citizens to Preserve the Ojai.

But a second suit filed by the Environmental Coalition of Ventura County in December is unresolved.

“We’d really like to talk to the opposition and the city and our attorneys and come up with a plan that everyone can live with so we don’t get stopped again,” Smigel said. “We haven’t contacted them yet, so nothing’s on the table and we haven’t taken anything off either.”

Stan Greene, administrative director for Citizens to Preserve the Ojai, said his group would meet with developers to discuss reducing the number of condos in the development.

“Our whole case was not to stop the project; it was to get its density reduced,” Greene said.

“We were hoping the number of units would be reduced or the square footage of each unit would be reduced. Early on, we threw out the number 16 [units] as more in keeping with the nature of this community.”

Greene said his group sued because officials changed a city code to accommodate a single project, allowing for greater density.

“They used the words ‘model for the future,’ and that was scary,” Greene said. “But we’d be willing to talk to anybody; we’ve always been willing to do that.”