Councilman Urges Growth Boundaries

With a crucial meeting on Oxnard’s future development policy coming up, Councilman Tom Holden is calling for officials to adopt strict growth limits to protect farmland and beaches.

Holden has voiced support for “urban growth boundaries,” a planning tool he said would make it more difficult for Oxnard to annex and develop land outside city limits.

In a recent report, city planning officials described the urban growth boundaries as a “mapped line dividing land to be developed from . . . land to be protected.” Such boundaries are typically adopted for about 20 years, the report states.

Holden said he supports such limits because the promise of staying within certain boundaries for an extended period of time provides “more teeth” than existing planning tools. As it stands, Holden said, it is relatively easy for cities to annex land in their spheres of influence or in greenbelt areas that separate them from neighboring communities.

“What I’m looking for is restrictions that can say, ‘Beyond this, we’re not going,’ ” he said.

The councilman’s suggestion comes as the Southeast Plan, a proposal to annex 815 acres of farmland and build more than 3,000 homes and an agriculture theme park, is making its way through the city’s bureaucracy. At a meeting scheduled for this month, city officials will discuss the Southeast Plan and numerous other projects.

Holden argues that the Southeast Plan, which he said makes no sense, has highlighted the community’s desire to protect open spaces. He said the urban growth limits could protect agricultural areas included in the Southeast Plan, as well as some undeveloped land near Ormond Beach.

“In the past, we’ve kept going and going, without the perception that land is not an infinite resource,” Holden said.