Ventura to Consider Plans for Downtown : Growth: The Redevelopment Agency will look at setting priorities as well as funding projects targeting the city’s oldest business district.

Bombarded with proposals from developers, Ventura’s Redevelopment Agency will spend this afternoon deciding what its downtown development priorities are and how to pay for them.

At the meeting, the agency’s seven City Council members will review redevelopment proposals and discuss the course for revitalizing one of the city’s oldest business districts.

“We’re going to be looking at the funding sources, what is our primary focus (and) what are the blocks we want to pursue” for development, said Councilman Gregory L. Carson, who serves as the agency’s director.

Redevelopment agencies are created by cities to improve a specific area deemed to be blighted. As property values increase in a redevelopment zone, all of the extra property taxes go to the redevelopment agency--not to schools, the county or to special districts.

Today’s meeting will focus on a redevelopment area bordered by Palm Street on the east, the Ventura River on the west, Harbor Boulevard on the south and Poli Street on the north. The agency can offer low-interest loans, fee waivers and other enticements to prospective developers to encourage projects in the area.

With the economy picking up, the enticements appear to be working. Several developers are now vying for redevelopment money:

* Oxnard-based KNM Development Co. has teamed with Tone Yee Investments & Developments of Taiwan to propose a 238-townhouse and condominium project on five acres at Thompson Boulevard and Figueroa Street. Eager to lock into an exclusive negotiating agreement with the city on the property, the developers nevertheless have not determined how much money the project will cost or how much redevelopment money they will seek.

* R. Hertel Constructors of Ventura and Santa Monica-based Zephyr Development Co. have each shown interest in constructing townhomes on a four-acre parcel owned by the Ventura Unified School District on Santa Clara Street. The property is occupied by a school bus parking lot and some administrative offices.

* Holguin, Fahan & Associates, a Ventura environmental consulting company, wants to construct a Victorian-style office building at Figueroa Street and Thompson Boulevard.

* Developer Ted Price hopes to knock down the aging Meta Motel on Thompson Boulevard and replace it with condominiums.

* And the City Council has agreed to let Ventura Realty raze most of the 117-year-old Peirano building on Main Street to showcase an old Spanish laundry beneath.

Each of the proposed projects lies within the designated redevelopment zone and would be eligible for help from the Redevelopment Agency.

The agency’s downtown zone, however, only has $5.5 million in cash and assets available to hand out--probably not enough, council members and city staff say, to fund every project asking for money.

Carson said the solution may be to expand the boundaries of the agency’s downtown district, thereby increasing future revenues and allowing the agency to borrow more money.

Councilman Jack Tingstrom agreed. “If the Redevelopment Agency wants to step up to the plate, we’re going to have to show we mean business,” he said. “If we want to do anything with the Redevelopment Agency, we’re going to have to raise more money.”

Other council members, however, said they were wary about giving the agency more latitude to reconstruct downtown.

“We have started enough projects in the area, and I think the city should back away from it now and let the private sector develop it,” Councilman Jim Monahan said. “There’s got to be a really good reason to persuade me to come up with some more money.”

Carson said he also plans today to propose that the City Council take a bus tour of Los Angeles-area cities that have redeveloped their downtowns.

Carson envisions a far-ranging trip that would take in Burbank, Long Beach, Pasadena and Santa Monica before returning to Ventura in the evening. “Perhaps we could have lunch with City Council members from redevelopment agencies that have done some really creative things,” he said. “We could just pick their brains.”

Aside from proposing Greyhound tours and grappling with theoretical issues like boundaries and future revenues, the agency will also focus on at least one specific property--the school district’s bus yard.

Two school board members and at least one district administrator plan to attend the meeting at the agency’s behest to discuss whether they want to work with the city in developing the property.

City and school district officials began discussing the idea four years ago. The city offered to funnel the parcel’s redevelopment money to the district when the land sold, but even then, the district said it couldn’t afford to move off the property.

“We had so many budget problems, we couldn’t even think about anything else,” board President Diane Harriman said. “Now we are solvent.”

Assuming that school officials can find another, affordable piece of land on which to park their buses and run their district, Harriman said she would like to see the Santa Clara property sold and developed.

“They want to redevelop that whole area, and here we have a bus yard in the middle of it and it looks kind of bad,” she said. “That whole area down there is beautiful, and we’re just sitting right in the middle of it.”

R. Hertel Constructors wants to fill the lot with Monterey- or early California-style townhouses, said Tom Crozier, the company’s vice president. Hertel is also working with the city on the east side of town, trying to persuade the council to let it build homes on property the city owns while it would help the city build a park on land the developer possesses next to the Santa Paula Freeway.

Zephyr Development also sees townhouse possibilities in the property and has sent a letter to the city expressing interest in the site. However, company owner Bob Goetsch said any development there is still very preliminary.

“If there’s going to be a project there, it will be a number of years away,” he said. “We’re not running in there Monday with both feet and a bag of money.”