Residents Fight Plan to Build Retail Center

A group of Moorpark residents is fighting a proposed shopping center they say would bottleneck traffic on a state highway that is already one of the most congested roadways in the city.

Members of the neighborhood group who live next to the site of the proposed center on Wednesday called the project a bad idea and said they will demonstrate their opposition to the development next week at a Moorpark City Council meeting.

A development plan filed nearly two years ago by Macleod Construction Co. and Ventura Pacific Capital Co. promises to turn a 38-acre field located on California 118 into a bustling shopping center and a 227-unit apartment complex.

The proposed center, called Mission Bell Plaza and Greenleaf apartments by its developers, ran into trouble two weeks ago with the Planning Commission.

Commissioners rejected the shopping center on a 3-1 vote after learning that it would contribute significantly to air pollution and to traffic on the highway.

Neighbors say the Planning Commission made the right decision, said Doug Frazier, who lives next to the proposed shopping center.

About 35 residents showed up at a neighborhood meeting Wednesday night to plan their strategy in opposing the project.

With an Albertson’s supermarket, a Payless drugstore, retail stores, medical offices, a day-care center and apartments, the center is the largest combined commercial and residential project under consideration in Moorpark, said Pat Richards, community development director.

Planning Commissioner Michael Scullin, the lone supporter of the project, said Moorpark badly needs more shopping centers and apartments for seniors and low-income residents, a main component of the controversial plan.

Landowner and developer Kenneth Macleod said company representatives have met at least 10 times with the neighbors. They have agreed to install two traffic signals, eliminate loading docks and landscape the center to create a buffer zone in an attempt to appease neighbors, Macleod said.

But the three planning commissioners who rejected the project were unappeased. They were swayed by an environmental impact report that said the complex would generate 19,650 trips each day, Commissioner Bill Lanahan said.

Lanahan said air pollution was also a concern, since the same report noted that the levels of two types of air pollutants produced by the project would be unusually high, nearly four times in excess of the county’s air-quality limits.

“This would require major rework. We’re hoping the council feels the same way,” Lanahan said.

Most motorists and trucks traveling to the proposed shopping center would use California 118, the main east-west link from Ventura to Moorpark through the agricultural eastern Santa Rosa Valley.

Traffic on 118 near the proposed shopping center is already excessive, according to a state Department of Transportation official.

“It’s as congested as a two-lane highway should be or could be on that particular stretch,” Caltrans traffic engineer Peter Hsu said. “This is one that’s operating at excess capacity already.”

Last year, Caltrans counted 25,000 vehicle trips each day in downtown Moorpark where California 118 and Moorpark Avenue meet, less than half a mile from the shopping center site.

Because of the congestion, Caltrans is still studying a $21-million road-widening project for a 6.5-mile stretch of California 118 between Moorpark Avenue and Somis Road in Somis, but the widening is years away, Hsu said.

Frazier, who commutes to Thousand Oaks, said that on some mornings residents must wait at least 20 minutes to cross the highway.

Another downtown shopping center located less than a quarter of a mile away already includes a Hughes supermarket, restaurants and retail stores, Frazier said.

“The environmental impact report says there are problems that can’t be corrected,” Frazier said. “And we want to fight it.”