Group Sets Meeting on Ormond Beach

A community group is set to hold a public meeting today to discuss the future of coastal property and sensitive wetlands at Oxnard’s Ormond Beach.

Made up of developers, environmentalists and local government officials, a working group representing the Ormond Beach Task Force has spent more than six months drafting a plan for the more than 1,400 acres in south Oxnard.

The group will discuss its land-use proposals at the Southern California Edison Co. plant at 6635 S. Edison Road between 9 a.m. and noon.

“This is designed to be a consensus plan that we would all agree on and feel good about, including Baldwin,” said Jean Harris of the conservation group Oxnard Beautiful, who has helped work on the plan.

The Baldwin Co. is the financially struggling Orange County-based developer that has wanted to build hundreds of homes in the area for about a decade. Although Baldwin owns several hundred acres in the area, many now question the company’s ability to follow through on its development proposals after it filed for bankruptcy last year.

During today’s meeting, the working group will seek approval on the plan from the task force as a whole.

The task force will then ask the Oxnard City Council and Land Use Advisors panel to review the plan. Harris said the task force wants Oxnard and the developer to incorporate the plan’s recommendations when preparing the environmental impact report on any developments in the area.