Oxnard Panel OKs 30-Year Growth Plan

After more than a year of public hearings and deliberation, the Oxnard Planning Commission approved a controversial growth plan that would permit a 32% population increase in the city over the next 30 years, making way for final City Council action next month.

The council unanimously agreed Wednesday to postpone hearings on the General Plan until the final week in August, when the council will schedule five full days of deliberation.

During its consideration of the two-inch-thick document, the Planning Commission heard numerous objections from a wide variety of groups, including the U.S. Navy, slow-growth advocates, the County Board of Supervisors and the city of Ventura.

Most of the objections focused on the amount of development permitted under the plan. As drafted, the plan would permit a population increase of 41,000 over the city’s current estimated population of 127,721 and a 135% increase in commercial development.

It would also allow the number of housing units in the city to increase by 32%--from 41,857 units today to 55,319 in the year 2020.

City officials said the changes made by the commission in response to the objections do not significantly alter the plan that was drafted last year by the General Plan Advisory Committee, a 22-member citizens panel that spent 2 1/2 years writing the plan.

The most significant change the commission made was to reject a proposal in the plan to expand the city’s “sphere of influence”--land outside the city that is governed by the plan--by about 3,500 acres. Instead, the commission decided to expand the sphere of influence by 86 acres near Pleasant Valley Road and the Pacific Coast Highway.

Mayor Nao Takasugi agreed Wednesday with the commission’s decision, saying the amount of development permitted in the plan can be accommodated within the city’s current boundaries.

“I don’t think it’s necessary to go outside our sphere of influence,” he said.

The commission’s decision last week not to extend Oxnard’s sphere of influence past Arnold Road on the city’s southwest border put into serious jeopardy a proposal by the Baldwin Co. of Irvine to build a 2,700-acre, marina-based residential development at Ormond Beach.

The beach, where heavy industry, wetlands and agriculture have coexisted uneasily for years, is near the Pacific Missile Test Center in Point Mugu.

The decision not to expand the boundaries reduces from 10,500 to 3,500 the number of housing units that the Baldwin Co. can build in the area.

Takasugi and Councilman Manuel Lopez agreed with that decision, saying the project as originally proposed was too massive.

“When I first heard of it I said ‘Wow,’ ” Takasugi said. But after reviewing the proposal and listening to public debate on the matter, the mayor said he believes that the project would severely cut into the wetlands and “destroy the beauty of the beach.”

Representatives of the Navy have opposed the development, saying it would be incompatible with aircraft operations and weapons system tests performed at the missile test facility.

Councilwoman Dorothy Maron said Wednesday that the plan does not adequately balance the increasing number of houses with the number of jobs permitted in the city during the next 30 years. She said the plan would permit more job opportunities--115,896, up from 42,128 last year--than housing units. “The numbers don’t correlate,” she said.

However, Community Development Director Richard Maggio said the numbers would eventually balance because the city is now “job poor and worker rich.”