Cal State Says Camarillo Site Has Big Plus : Education: Officials believe that construction on the 320 acres of farmland proposed for a campus would cause fewer environmental problems than at two other locations.

California State University officials said Thursday that building a campus on 320 acres of farmland west of Camarillo would cause fewer environmental problems than building on either of the other two sites being considered.

The property, known as the Duntley/Chaffee site, is located next to the California Youth Authority facility and floods during heavy rains, according to an environmental impact report released last month. But university officials are discussing flood solutions with a federal agency that might pay for the work, said David Leveille, director of institutional relations for the Cal State system.

A second site studied just east of Oxnard has hazardous wastes from abandoned oil fields, and a third site just east of the city of Ventura is near a residential area, the report said.

The Ventura site also lacks the full support of the City Council, an element that university officials have called crucial.

But Leveille cautioned that the cost of the property, still undetermined while negotiations continue with owners of all three sites, is an important factor in deciding where the university will be built.

“Almost all of the owners do not want to sell, and some have been very unrealistic in terms of price,” Leveille said.

Leveille’s comments followed an hourlong public hearing, attended by 75 people, on the adequacy of the 1,700-page environmental impact report.

Only 13 people spoke, many in support of bringing a Cal State campus to the county without advocating one site over another.

The university wants to build a campus to serve 5,000 students by 2000, growing to 20,000 students by 2010.

The campus would require about 6,200 new houses for an additional 13,600 people who would move to the county because of the university, the report says.

Larry Rose, a Santa Paula resident whose nursery business depends on agriculture, warned officials that farmland is disappearing from the county and should be preserved.

“There is a threshold of agriculture land necessary to sustain a viable agriculture community,” Rose said.

Walter Beck, president of the Camarillo Chamber of Commerce, told the university officials that the business community would support the college. “Using the greenbelt is permitted for a public entity, and CSU is the public entity that we want.”

Jim Wortman, president of the downtown business association of Oxnard, told university officials that the community welcomes a college to the county.

“We want you out here,” he said. “We need you.”

Representatives from the city of Camarillo, who have previously welcomed the university, raised concerns that the study may underestimate the impacts that the university would have on Camarillo’s sewer and water systems and on the traffic along Central Avenue just west of the city.

“The costs of the infrastructure--bringing sewer and water and roads to the university--cannot be borne by any one city,” said Camarillo Mayor David Smith.

Smith said the city is also concerned about building a university in the greenbelt, land set aside for agriculture and open space in an agreement among Camarillo, Oxnard and Ventura County.

“We hope that everyone will not see the university as a reason to fill in all the land between Oxnard and Camarillo,” Smith said. “It is no one’s intention to go beyond what is necessary to sustain a commuter college.”

But Smith said the concerns do not mean that the city is withdrawing its support for the university.

Both the cities of Camarillo and Oxnard said last fall that they would work with Cal State to provide services.

A lack of a commitment from Ventura to provide water and other services helped prompt the university to back away from its preferred site at the Taylor Ranch west of Ventura last November.

The comments will be added to the environmental impact report and submitted to the Cal State Board of Trustees in September, when the board is expected to select a final site.

Proposed Cal State University Sites

1. Sudden Ranch Site,: 350 acres south of Foothill Road between Saticoy Avenue and Kimball Road, northeast of Ventura. 2. Duntley / Chaffee property: 320 acres east of Central Avenue and south of Santa Clara Avenue, west of Camarillo and next to the California Youth Authority facility. 3. Donlon property: 308 acres south of Wooley Road between Rose and Rice avenues, east of Oxnard.

NEXT STEP

July 27 is the final day for comment on the environmental impact report. The 1,700-page report is available to read at city halls in Ventura, Oxnard and Camarillo, at the Ventura County Government Center and at the Ventura campus of Cal State Northridge. Cal State trustees will meet in Long Beach on Sept. 10-11 to decide whether to approve the study and pick a site.