Panel Picks Ventura County Site for Cal State Campus : Education: Trustee committee selects 320-acre grove west of Camarillo for the university’s 21st branch. There are budget limitations on acquiring and improving land.

Capping a five-year search for land to build a state university in Ventura County, a committee of Cal State trustees meeting in Long Beach on Tuesday chose a lemon grove between Camarillo and Oxnard as the future home of the system’s 21st campus.

The site, which was approved over the objections of one trustee, must be ratified by California State University’s full Board of Trustees, scheduled to meet today, but that vote is expected to be largely a formality.

The 320-acre site west of the quiet community of Camarillo won the endorsement after extensive studies showed it had fewer environmental problems than two alternative sites in nearby Ventura and Oxnard. Cal State proposes to build a two-year campus to serve 2,000 juniors, seniors and graduate students. The campus would develop into a four-year institution for 20,000 students over 20 years.

However, the university must acquire the property within its $6-million budget, address flooding problems and obtain water and sewer services for the unincorporated farmland at a reasonable cost, officials said. One rejected site had hazardous waste problems and another was too close to an earthquake fault line.

Should the cost prove prohibitive Ventura County would lose its opportunity to host a state university, said Trustee Anthony M. Viti, chairman of the site selection committee.

“We’ve expended a lot of effort, time and a lot of money on this site,” Viti said. “If we are frustrated, I don’t see us approaching the county again this century.”

But John M. Smart, vice chancellor of University Affairs, said the so-called Duntley/Chaffee property, next to a California Youth Authority facility, will make a successful campus as long as the community continues to support CSU efforts.

The Camarillo and Oxnard city councils have endorsed the site, saying they are willing to work with the university to bring sewer and water services to the property, which sits outside both their city boundaries.

The site has been opposed by airline pilots who fear the university might curtail activities at the nearby Camarillo Airport and by several homeowners in an exclusive housing development who worry that students seeking shortcuts will race through their narrow winding streets.

Ventura County was identified as a potential California State University site in the early 1960s. In 1985, state Sen. Gary Hart (D-Santa Barbara) sponsored legislation to set aside $7 million to buy the land. After a million-dollar environmental study, the university has $6 million remaining to negotiate for the property.

A lack of support from the divided Ventura City Council and objections from vocal homeowners in Ventura were crucial in the rejection of two proposed sites in 1987 and 1990. Those rejections ultimately delayed the selection process.

Viti and other trustees lauded the site west of Camarillo and north of the Ventura Freeway as the best location in the county for the campus.

But Trustee Marian Bagdasarian objected to locating a campus near the youth prison, which houses more than 800 criminals up to age 24.

“Of all the places we could build a university, why do we have to build it next to a CYA facility?” she asked her fellow board members. “I cannot vote for this.”