Commission to Review 10 Developments

VENTURA — Breaking a three-year moratorium, the city’s Planning Commission on Tuesday night will review 10 proposed housing developments seeking to build more than 1,900 new homes.

With fewer than 500 housing allotments available to developers, planners will look at eight proposals for apartments or houses in the city’s fast-growing east end and two near Ventura Avenue.

“I think a lot of people think this has been a long time coming,” said Karen Bates, a city planner. “It won’t happen again until 1999.”

But some residents say the city is moving too fast given that voters just approved a bond measure to deal with overcrowding in east end schools.

“Look, we just got the school bond, and already they are getting ready to build,” said Sheri Vincent, an east Ventura resident who spearheaded a drive to preserve the city’s agricultural land.

“We got in a bad situation with schools, resources and traffic. Now we have a Band-Aid, and they are getting ready to undermine what they have done. I’m not anti-development, but I think we have to be very careful.”

The city has not granted housing allocations to developers since 1994, when the City Council voted to switch to a two-year allocation cycle.

Then in 1996, council members postponed the allocation process again, concerned that the city’s growth might be outstripping its population goals.

Reacting to complaints that the old system was cumbersome and failed to fit the needs of a now mature community, the City Council adopted a new plan in March to manage residential growth in Ventura.

That plan emphasizes filling in vacant land between developments rather than expanding to outlying areas, as well as evaluating projects in terms of their larger value to the community. For example, a development might be given a higher rating if it had parks or attractive architecture.

The projects are the last to be considered under the council’s old system, but planners say decisions could well be influenced by the new criteria.

“Maybe there is a different awareness,” Bates said. “This year, we are moving toward the 1999 criteria a little bit, because the architecture and design of the development is really going to be emphasized in 1999.”

Today, developers are fighting harder than ever to build in Ventura.

In 1994, developers requested allocations for a total of 2,218 units, with only 1,018 available. This year, developers are requesting 1,931 units, with only 472 available.

“We are in a buyers’ market as far as the city goes,” Planning Commissioner Sandy Smith said. “We can afford to be choosy.”

The proposed developments will not start construction until October 1999--so Ventura can remain safely under its millennium population cap of 105,000.

“We won’t see a shovel go into the ground until after 2000,” Smith said.

All of the projects to be reviewed Tuesday night are larger, consisting of more than five residential units. Eight of the 10 submitted for review are in east Ventura, four of them clustered near the County Government Center.

One project proposed for the site of old Mill School north of Ventura Avenue lies outside the city’s borders.

More than half of the residences are homes rather than apartments.

Smith predicted that rather than doling out all the housing allocations to one or two projects, the commission is likely to divvy up the coveted allocations between many projects.

“There may be four or five that we like,” Smith said. “But rather than giving them all the allocations they need, we may decide to only give them 20 each.”

The Planning Commission meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m. in the City Council chambers. Site plans and elevations for all 10 projects will be on display from 4 p.m. on the same day in the community meeting room at City Hall.

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Proposed Developments Here’s a look at the 10 development projects that the Ventura Planning Commission will consider Tuesday night:

Number and type of units:

Location: Southeast Telephone Road and Saticoy Avenue

Number and type of units: 75 single-family homes, 364 apartments

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Location: Northeast Saratoga Avenue and Telephone Road

Number and type of units: 204 apartments

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Location: Southwest Kimball and Foothill roads

Number and type of units: Nine duplexes (in place of plans for 13 single-family homes)

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Location: Northwest Ventura Avenue and Shoshone Street

Number and type of units: 32 single-family homes, 40 condominiums

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Location: West of Crooked Palm Road, south of former Mill School

Number and type of units: 245 single-family houses, 95 condominiums

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Location: Citrus Drive and Peach Avenue

Number and type of units: 127 single-family houses

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Location: Northwest Saratoga Avenue west of County Square

Number and type of units: 258 single-family houses

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Location: Between California 126 and Telegraph Road, north of Copland Street

Number and type of units: 128 homes, 60 apartments

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Location: North and south of North Bank Drive

Number and type of units: 194 single-family houses

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Location: Northwest Ralston Street and Cypress Point Lane

Number and type of units: 100 apartments