Sales Tax Hike Would Fund an Effort to Preserve Open Space

Ventura County’s reputation as an anti-growth refuge will be tested Nov. 2 when voters decide whether to hike the sales tax by a quarter-cent to buy or permanently preserve undeveloped land.

Measure A would raise $25 million a year to preserve farms, beaches, rivers, pastures and ridges either by outright purchase or sale of development rights. Ventura County’s sales tax would increase to 7.5% from 7.25% should the measure get the required two-thirds voter approval.

Backers say that Ventura County, with a population of about 800,000, could begin to permanently halt the kind of sprawl that transformed once semi-rural Los Angeles and Orange counties into crowded urban landscapes. Indeed, proponents have made Los Angeles County the poster child for what not to do.

“If we fail, we need only look to the San Fernando Valley and the Los Angeles basin to glimpse our and our children’s future,” warns Measure A’s mailers.

With no organized opposition, the vote will indicate whether Ventura County voters are ready to put money behind their often-stated support for growth controls, said Paul Shigley, managing editor of the California Planning and Development Report.

“These sort of measures are pretty rare,” Shigley said, noting that only Sonoma County has passed a similar tax. “There’s going to have to be a very strong anti-growth and land preservation sentiment to reach the two-thirds bar.”

In the 1990s, Ventura County gained recognition for passing some of the toughest growth control laws in the nation. Known as Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources, the measures drew lines around cities and banned any development outside of them without first consulting voters.

But the laws will expire after 20 years, renewing pressure to build, said Jim Engel, a Measure A spokesman.

“SOAR is really only temporary and open to the winds of political pressure,” Engel said.

Targeted areas include Montclef Ridge and portions of the Santa Susana Mountains above Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley, Ormond Beach near Oxnard and the undeveloped hillsides above Ventura.

Development rights to farmlands that separate cities in western Ventura County would also be a high priority, backers say. The open space district created by Measure A’s approval would serve more as a funding agency than a land manager, seeking to turn over the maintenance of properties to private conservancies, Engel said.

A 41-member committee of farmers, business leaders, environmentalists and taxpayer advocates met for a year to determine how the open space district would operate. Measure A spreads the proceeds of the tax increase evenly among three regions in Ventura County and allows cities and the county to appoint the open space district’s governing board.

It also calls for annual audits and financial review by an oversight committee. The tax would expire in 10 years.

While no groups have organized to fight Measure A, some organizations have criticized it as unnecessary and say it could worsen an already tight housing market.

After initially giving support, the Ventura County Taxpayers Assn. voted recently to oppose Measure A.