Council Criticizes Study of Cal State Sites

The Ventura City Council voted Monday to send a letter to the California State University system, criticizing its environmental impact report on the three potential sites for a campus in Ventura County.

The council members refused to endorse any of the sites because the environmental report inadequately outlined the effect the school would have on traffic, housing, water supplies and greenbelt preservation, several members said.

Most of the criticism was directed at the analysis of the Sudden Ranch site, 350 acres south of Foothill Road in East Ventura.

Mayor Richard Francis also said the greenbelt between Camarillo and Oxnard would be threatened by a university campus at the 320-acre Duntley-Chaffee site, which abuts the California Youth Authority’s prison in Camarillo.

The other site is the 308-acre Donlon site south of Wooley Road between Rose and Rice avenues, east of Oxnard.

“If we say yes tonight, that greenbelt’s gone,” Francis said of the Duntley-Chaffee property, which recently has been emerging as the site least objectionable to many officials. “Camarillo and Oxnard run together.”

The letter says the environmental report fails to properly assess the effect of 9,000 housing units and commercial development that would be built in Ventura if the Sudden Ranch site was chosen.

Francis urged the council to ask the CSU board of trustees to reconsider building the campus at the Taylor Ranch site in west Ventura, despite several obstacles. Councilman James Monahan concurred with Francis’ recommendation.

The CSU trustees rejected the Taylor Ranch site last year for several reasons, Vice Chancellor David Leveille, director of institutional relations for CSU, has said. Leveille said the owners won’t sell the land and threatened litigation if the university tried to take the land through eminent-domain proceedings.

The City Council also rejected the Taylor Ranch site last fall because it would generate too much traffic and force heavy growth in the west side of town.

On Monday, Deputy Mayor Donald Villeneuve warned, “I think we are very close to losing the opportunity to have a campus anywhere. The more we vacillate, the more we try to revive a mordant proposal, the more we risk losing the opportunity.”

Earlier, during the public-comment segment of the council meeting, a spokeswoman for the Voters Coalition of Ventura urged the council to support the Duntley-Chaffee site.

The spokeswoman, architect Janis McCormick, said building on a flat site, such as the Duntley-Chaffee property, would be cheaper than building on the hilly land at the Sudden Ranch. She also dismissed some critics’ worries about building a university near a juvenile prison, saying the CYA’s Ventura School, where she tutors once a week, poses no safety threat.

The Ventura Chamber of Commerce supports building the campus at the Sudden Ranch site, said Chamber President Jim Barroca.

The letter, which the council voted 6 to 0 to send to the CSU trustees, criticizes the environmental impact report for recommending that the Ventura Comprehensive Plan be rewritten to encompass the Sudden Ranch site, if it is chosen as the new campus. Francis said the plan, a blueprint for future development in the city that cost $250,000, would have to be rewritten at considerable cost.

CSU trustees are expected to vote on a final site choice at their Sept. 10-11 meeting.